One of my good friends recently did something that surprised me. She bought a juicer. And not just any juicer — a top-of-the-line $300 cold press juicer. She’s also signed up for personal training sessions, after talking about starting to work out again for over a year. What surprised me was there was no obvious […]
It always takes me by surprise. When I give my presentation on “how to get a mental six-pack,” I ask the audience, so what’s your biggest takeaway? In my mind, I’m thinking it’ll be something like “I didn’t realize we have to master our biology in order to change” or “now I have a model […]
Wait, Renita, what are you talking about? Don’t you always say we have to get comfortable being uncomfortable? Well, let’s make a distinction between two kinds of uncomfortable: there’s the discomfort of going into the unknown, the unfamiliar, taking action when we don’t know how it’ll play out. And then there’s the discomfort where we […]
Standing at the crowded coffee bar, I waited patiently to catch the attention of the server frantically busy filling orders. A tall German woman strode up next to me and, with no hesitation, called out her order for two cappuccinos. I looked at her, incredulous, feeling the urge to slap her arm and say: “Are […]
Hard work: it’s the secret to success, we’re told from an early age — by our parents, society and pretty much every person who achieves notable success. But what exactly is “working hard” and how do we know if we’re working hard enough? Good question. We’re not really taught any nuance around what constitutes “hard work.” And because work in today’s world isn’t linear and we don’t get immediate feedback after […]
See the presentation on Slideshare.com. My last year of high school brought two momentous developments. One, I got contact lenses. And two, I decided I was tired of being a nerdy bookworm and wanted to be on the tennis team. My mom (who was making huge sacrifices so I could pursue music) said okay, as long […]
Last week, I co-presented a live workshop here in New York City with rock star coach and founder of Six-Figure Start Caroline Ceniza-Levine on how to handle high stakes performance situations (a client negotiation, funding request or performance review, for example). The participants were smart, accomplished and asked insightful questions. What I realized, however, is […]
A few months ago, around the holiday season, a friend and I walked into a wine bar on the Upper West Side. (Sounds like a bad joke.) Sitting there at the bar, with a Britney Spears song blaring on the loudspeakers, struggling to read the menu in the dim light and pressured by the overly attentive bartender coming […]
“How dare they cancel at the last minute? They’re supposed to give you 24 hours notice. Your time is valuable. How dare they waste your time, you could have scheduled 10 different things instead, your time is valuable, you know…” Aargh, that’s what the yammering voice in my head sounds like when it gets on […]
Blowing a high-stakes presentation, flubbing a chance conversation with a senior partner in the elevator, bombing the exam you studied months for – choking under pressure is one, really painful and two, usually means lost opportunities. What’s funny is that while it was our brainpower that’s instrumental in getting us to that point of achievement, […]