Career Strong

If you've been wondering where I went I wanted to let you know I've moved to a new site!! The new site gives me the ability to not only give you my blog but also share my recipes, videos and even give you the opportunity to book courses or one on one sessions directly with me. Here's a look at the homepage. It's a treasure trove of information all for you. So come on over to  www.emilyhawkins4u.com I have so much I want to share with you!

You did it! You got the promotion and now manage a team. It doesn't matter if it's a team of 1 or 100 your skill set must shift from doer to leader. While many a doer get promoted, few take on the actual characteristics of a leader. Instead they stay in doer mode causing frustration, resentment and turnover in their organization. This is what I refer to as "death by doer." Killing all hope, creativity and productivity of a team. Don't become the grim reaper of your team. Instead adopt these simple behaviors to ignite passion in your group and share your doer gifts. Stop doing and starting teaching Why were you such a successful doer? Because you thought differently than your peers. It's time to share that thinking with your team. As a leader it's your job to teach your team how to think, not what to think. Many a leader get caught up in micromanaging tasks. They believe there is only one way to accomplish a task and it's theirs. This is the u...

I didn't coin this phrase but I believe it's the best description for the process I'm about to share with you. Have you ever had something hit you so hard you couldn't move? You were informed of the death of a relative, you were let go from your job, you had devastating news about your own health. Or maybe you didn't get into that dream school, you failed an exam or you screwed up at work. Any of these can knock you down. While I firmly believe in rising above the hurt and pain you feel I want to focus on the part before the rising. The part that the majority of people try desperately to skip over, 100% feeling the hurt, the anguish, the betrayal, the failure. This, my friends, is "leaning into the suck." If you asked me what eats at most people I would say it's their inability to lean into these emotions. We are in such a hurry to move on and "be strong" that we rush right over feeling and into solving. The Danger Why is it dange...

Each week I bring you a tip in the hopes that you not only enjoy the writing but you also implement positive change in your life. After months of planning I'm ready to take this a step further. Making the SHIFT It all started when I received my undergraduate degree and entered adulthood. I began to see something akin to an illness all around me. No matter how many promotions I received or how high I climbed the corporate ladder it was still there, in every level of management.  Even after receiving my MBA surrounded by some of the smartest people I've ever met, there it was, the plague.  What is this disease I refer to? The lack of sustainably* successful leadership.  I threw myself into biographies, podcasts and personal development books with the sole purpose of understanding what made a sustainably successful leader tick. Why were there so few? In July of this year everything fell into place. During a corporate event, Brendon Bruchard spoke ab...

My husband thought it would be fun to bring home Krispy Kreme donuts (my version of heroine) for the kids. I immediately made these peanut butter energy balls to stay away from the donuts. You can make these in minutes in case you have the same sugar emergency I did. Ingredients 1/2 cup peanut butter 1/2 cup vanilla shakeology mix 4 tablespoons raw honey Directions Mix ingredients together in a bowl using a spatula. Once mixed roll into 12 balls. Store in fridge (if any survive, they go fast in my house)

Have you ever looked back at the person you were and thought, who was that?  When I do this I see 3 distinct lives, some overlapping.  The Kid Life I owe my parents a long letter of apology, and a maybe a giant edible arrangement, for somehow not killing me but also being patient with my 10 million questions, crazy decision-making and temper tantrums.  I loved being a kid, experiencing travel from an early age and feeling free to be what I wanted to be. Could I go back there though? No way, I love my independence and seeing the other side of childhood through my parent eyes.   The Awkward Life Who am I kidding, I'm still technically in this phase of my life and will always be to some degree. The real awkward phase I'm referring to is adolescence and right through my 20s. That time  for me was spent sandpapering my proverbial square edges to fit in the round hole known as middle school/popular/cool.   Our teens and twenties have been ...

I used to think having a side dish that takes 5 minutes to make, tastes delicious and includes veggies was a pipe dream, until I found this little gem. With it being Apple picking season I thought it was time to share my favorite easy healthy side dish. Warm Apple-Cabbage Slaw I'm going to make this simple for you where you only have to slice an apple. Ingredients 1 bag cole slaw mix 1 apple, thinly sliced 1/4 cup water cider vinegar, to taste Yep, just cheap cole slaw mix (no mayo, it's simply the cabbage and carrots) Directions Place cole slaw mix, sliced apple and water in a medium skillet, heat on medium low, cover and cook until tender.  Stir in cider vinegar to taste and serve The finished product in the pan after 5 minutes of cooking  

We all have that friend or coworker that claims to be a perfectionist. Or maybe you're the one touting this attribute.  You may think a perfectionist is someone who is detail oriented,  a type A, go-getter. Let's be honest, it is the best answer when asked in an interview, "What's your biggest weakness?"  A way of humbly saying "Being perfect is my only flaw." All joking aside I do believe there are dark sides to this personality type that need to be explored for a few reasons. If you're hiring a perfectionist you need to understand the dynamic you're getting into and if you are one you need to realize what you are actually showing the world. Poor Time Management Have you ever met a perfectionist who was on time? I never have. Because of their perfectionist ways they tend to be late for nearly everything. Perfectionists get completely engrossed in a task and think they only need a few more seconds to "solve the puzzle....

My neighborhood publishes a cookbook from time to time and this recipe is from my amazing neighbor Olivia Ott. She is now my favorite neighbor because of this simple recipe. 4 boneless chicken breasts (I love the thin sliced chicken breasts because they cook faster) 1 Zuchinni, chopped 1 Summer Squash, chopped 1 Medium Onion, chopped 1 cup hummus, your choice 1 tablespoon olive oil 2 lemons 1 teaspoon paprika Salt and Pepper to taste Preheat oven to 450 degrees Prepare one large baking dish with cooking spray Pat chicken dry* and season with salt and pepper to taste Toss zuchinni, squash and onion in olive oil, salt and pepper and place in the bottom of the baking dish evenly. Lay the chicken breasts evenly on top then cover each chicken breast with the hummus so that the entire breast is coated. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the chicken and vegetables. Then sprinkle the pan with smoked paprika. Thinly slice the remaining lemon and skatter the slices...

After finishing my MBA at 28, reaching my career and income goals and marrying my husband at 29 I decided to start a family.  What I soon learned was something that shocked me. Parenting has taught me 6 lessons that have made me a better leader, teacher, mentor and person. If you're childless you can stand to read this too. You may even see yourself in these stories. The Importance of Time Management Looking back on my life before kids I have no idea what I did all of the time. I'm assuming it involved binge watching TV and sleeping but it's a far off distant memory now that deserves no special place in history. Bottom line, I wasted a lot of time. After children, my time is time blocked, every last second. This may seem like overkill to the childless person who also works in a corporate job where projects are handed out like candy and downtime is for Game of Thrones. But to the career driven entrepreneur parent this is the only way things get accomplished. I c...

This recipe was made while I was running out the door to a meeting. I made it in 15 minutes and my husband took it out of the oven to feed the family. Yes, it's that easy! Ingredients 2 tsp. olive oil 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar  2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice  2 cloves garlic, chopped Salt and Pepper to taste 1 lb. green beans, ends removed  2 medium zucchini, sliced 2 medium summer squash, sliced 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes 1 medium green bell pepper, sliced  1 medium red onion, sliced 4 cooked chicken sausages, sliced  Instructions 1. To make marinade, combine oil, vinegar, lime juice, and garlic in a medium bowl; whisk to blend. 2. Season with salt and pepper, if desired; whisk to blend. Set aside. 3. Place green beans, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, bell pepper, and onion in a re-sealable plastic bag.  Add marinade; shake to blend. 4. Preheat broiler to high. 5. Place veggie mixture on large sheet pan. Add sausages; mix ...

Growing up I was never a morning person. Working slightly changed this but my full transition to morning person truly occurred after my first child was born. I gained quite a bit of weight with my pregnancy (55lbs to be exact) and knew I needed to workout but when was that going to happen? When I got home from work I was mentally and physically exhausted and I have always been a sweater so lunchtime workouts weren't for me. This left early mornings. 5 years later I wake up even earlier to not only workout but to set the intention for my day,read, meditate and even whip up breakfast before my kids get up. I want to share how I started each habit and why I can't go a day without them. Workout This one seems obvious right? I wanted to lose the 55 lbs I gained, but it became so much more. It's important to note that I enlisted a friend to workout with me. We promised to email each other when our workouts for the day were complete. Knowing she was somewhere,...

There's nothing more that I love than beef on a stick. Kidding. What I really love is a one pan meal, or in this instance an entire meal on a stick. These kabobs are simple and fun if you have kids that like to make bead necklaces but are old enough to handle sharp sticks. Without further ado, Rosemary Beef Kabobs. This is right before they went on the grill Ingredients 1lb Sirloin steak cubed 1/4 cup olive oil 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced Salt and pepper to taste 1 red onion, cut into wedges 1 pint of cherry tomatoes 2 green peppers (any color) chopped into thick chunks Directions Combine the olive oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper in a bowl.  Marinate the cubed sirloin steak at least 30 minutes, up to overnight. Drain and reserve the marinade for basting.  Prepare the barbecue grill.  Skewer the meat and vegetables Cook about 6 minutes for medium, basting the skewer while it cooks.  Off the skewer with easy oven...

Working from home, the holy grail of work environments. We believe if we could simply take out our commute we would be 10 times more productive at home and at work. This can be true but for the vast majority I'm going to say it's not. Here are a list of work from home pitfalls and how to work through them to become the productivity ninja you were born to be! Pitfall #1: I'll throw in a load of laundry! Pitfall number 1 hits close to home for me. I thought if I threw in a load of laundry when I woke up at 5AM and tossed it into the dryer when I was getting the kids up a couple of hours later, it would feel like I was never doing laundry.  Too bad I forgot about the folding and putting away piece of the puzzle. Each day I was forced to stop what I was doing and fold laundry for at least 30 minutes. In a week that was a loss of 2.5 hours of productivity! But it's actually more than that. By stopping and starting again it would typically take me at least 30 minut...

While I love carbs I've recently started cutting back on them, especially at dinnertime. What I mean by Carbs When I talk carbs I mean grains, potatoes and beans. Substitutions I love pasta! Whole wheat or not I love it all! But my waistline doesn't care for it. So I began trying different ways of subbing this food and the best option I have found is spiralizing summer squash or zucchini. (if you do summer squash it even looks like pasta) Cooking it You can steam, bake or sauté your spiralized veggies but I prefer sautéing and adding a few other little ingredients to give it an extra kick. Below is my go to zucchini pasta recipe that I've paired with a crowd pleaser at my house, Bruschetta Chicken! Pasta Ingredients 1 tsp. olive oil 1⁄2 medium red onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, nely chopped 4 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped 2 medium zucchini, spiralized (approx. 2 cups) 1 Tbsp. basil pesto sauce  Bruschetta Ingredients 2 cups cherry ...

I have felt like a fraud so many times in my life I can't even begin to share it all so I will focus on the most recent. 2 1/2 years ago I became a mother of two. I had been a mother of one for three years and felt that having another baby wouldn't really change anything. I was right, it changed EVERYTHING. The battlefield known as my life The dynamic in my house went from kind of crazy to chaotic. I was physically and emotionally drained on a daily basis. Laundry, bottles, children seeking attention, meal planning, diapers. I was completely overwhelmed. At this very same time work also threw me for a loop. When I came back from maternity leave, my work team was now a mutiny. No one wanted to work but they all wanted to get paid. The more I pushed the worse it got. Bottom line: I was failing at life. I wasn't a good mother and I wasn't a good leader. The Life Raft Until one day a coworker came to me with a personal development book. At this point I felt...

We all have lofty goals for ourselves: Make more money, get the promotion, move, marry, have children. The list goes on. The problem many of us face is that we tac a little phrase on the end of our goals. This phrase goes a little something like "then I'll be happy." There are a few things wrong with this thought process. Nothing happens at the end I've worked with countless individuals that talk about past career successes. These people rarely discuss the end, that's not where the story lives. The story is in the day to day that lead up to the success.  These work colleauges reminisce about staying up late, not knowing what they were doing and the silly things they thought would work.  The magic happens in the messy middle. It's ugly at times (why do you think I call it messy) but it's where the trying, learning and growing happens.  You're setting yourself up for heartache When I was 22 and newly married I had so m...

Anything new and unfamiliar scares the pants off of me. I always go through the same basic steps: 1. Panic - I'm going to fail, I don't want to do this, I want to quit. 2. Research - I must read, talk to people,  google and/or watch as many youtube videos as possible about this task. (It depends on the thing as to which I lean on first) 3. Do - I have to just do the thing. (this is the scariest part for me but it's the only way I'll learn) For me doing the thing has gotten me laughed at, dirty looks and a lot of questions which inevitably leads to the next step. 4. Fail - This is my strongest skill. I am quit possibly the best failure that's ever lived. I've never been naturally good at anything, step 4 is something I get to quickly. 5. Learn - Doing and failing get me to the learning stage. I figure things out and start to see the patterns, the rules, the flow. 6. Streamlining - I take what I've learned and make it better in some way. This is ...

As I come back from vacation with my family I'm reminded yet again of the power of being present. Fully present. I like to tell myself I'm going to focus on one task at a time then I find myself 3 hours deep in ping pong. Not the actual game but the jumping between activities and never doing any of them well. Before we left for vacation I set up a plan for myself. I would check my emails and post on social media before my kids were up and after they went to bed. I have never been more relaxed in my life! Because I preplanned my business activities I didn't freak out when I was with my children. This made me think really long and hard about my business in general. I have a long laundry list of items that I want to tackle. Because I want and, quite frankly need, to do all of these activities for my fledgling business I was starting to panic about how on earth I would do it all but remain present in each task. Then I remembered my google calendar and how it was time ...