Something Good Comes Out Of Something Bad

POSITIVE OUTCOMES COACHING, LLC

Micki Berg, PhD PCC

Don’t you just cringe with the words, “something good comes out of something bad.” I heard these words all my life from my mother. . .and she usually was right. If you are willing to be open-minded and have an open heart, even the worst of situations can offer opportunity.

In the movie, “Up In The Air,” George Clooney plays a man whose job it is to travel around the country as an third party contractor and fire people from their jobs. His rote spiel is to encourage the people he fires to see this as an opportunity to realize their dreams. One distraught man began to relish the idea of becoming a gourmet chef, something he had always wanted to do. He began to see that being let go from his passionless job as real opportunity.

In our current shaky economy, maybe my mother’s advice is something to be heeded. This just might be the right time to take the risk to change your job and career and let your innermost dreams become reality. It won’t be easy, nor will it happen overnight. But, with confidence and the desire for change, “something great CAN come out of something not so good!”

Securing a Life Coach can help you move forward and realize your dreams. GO FOR IT.
Contact me for a free session.

248-330-7005
micki@positiveoutcomescoaching.com
www.positiveoutcomescoaching.com

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Learn how dance the steps to greater happiness and fulfillment in life

Micki Berg, PhD PCC

The “AH-HA” came to me while watching Dancing with The Stars. A Life Coach helps you unleash your untapped potential so you can master the dance of life. A Life Coach pushes you, works you, and stetches your undiscovered and undeveloped skills so you can gracefully waltz your way to a higher level of success. . .one that is lying domant in your imagination waiting to be unleashed. A life coach can help you successfully waltz, jive, mambo and cha cha into the future. . .having fun along the way.

Contact me for a free session. Learn how dance the steps to greater happiness and fulfillment in life. In my studio you will change the way you think about yourself and your life.

248-330-7005

micki@positiveoutcomescoaching.com

www.positiveoutcomescoaching.com

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How Do You Differentiate Between a Boss and a Leader?

Micki Berg, PhD PCC

Leadership Skills LEAD to Holistic Well-Being for All

How do you differentiate between a boss and a leader?

In the simplest of terms, a boss catches you doing something wrong and
tells you about it at the most inappropriate of times, whereas a leader
catches you doing something good and tells you about it immediately.
Which do you want to be?

Modeling is the most powerful thing you do to influence the behaviors
of the people in your life. What kind of behaviors to you want to
elicit from your children, your friends, and your co-workers?

As a manager, developing and refining your leadership skills will
create a positive climate in the workplace, reduce stress, and result
in a sense of overall well-being for everyone, including you. The
greatest benefit of leadership is that it results in increased
productivity and happiness in all areas of your life.

Leaders are visionaries and dreamers. Leaders are optimistic. Leaders
are teachers who teach by example. Leaders are approachable and
hands-on. Leaders are welcomed with open arms, excitement, and respect
wherever they go because wherever they are, people are feeling good.

Are you an optimistic visionary? Are you fair, supportive,
nonjudgmental, open-minded, and encouraging? If you answered yes, you
are having a better all around life, physically, psychologically,
emotionally, and spiritually. Leadership is a choice. . .a no-brainer!

More on leadership to follow.

Positive Outcomes Coaching
Micki Berg, PhD, PCC
Career – Executive – Life Coach
248-330-7005
mberg1521@aol.com
www.mickiberg.com

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September 11, 2001

Micki Berg

September 11, 2010

Nine years ago America experienced the horrendous attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, not to discount the flight that went
down in the hills of Pennsylvania. Who would have imagined or even
believed that such a thing could happen in the USA?
These events were a loud and lasting wake-up call to the fact that we
can’t take anything for granted in life. My personal observations upon
visiting New York and Washington shortly after 911 was the resiliency
and renewed spirit of Americans as they pulled together and began
planning for the future.

As a Life Coach, immediately following 9/11, I felt an unexplainable
energy from my clients to move forward at an accelerated rate to
pursuit the passions and goals that many had compartmentalized until
the time when. . . .!!!

THE TIME IS NOW. If you wait until the mortgage is paid, or the
children are grown, or you finally became tenured in a job you don’t
enjoy, you are losing precious time from living out your dreams. What
major life-changing event is it going to take to propel you into a
state of personal transformation?

Life Coaching can help you realize your potential and find your “happy
place” in life. Don’t waste another minute. Tomorrow is today. Live
with excitement, anticipation, and passion. Become the person you
always wanted to be.

Contact me for a free session. Explore the impact that Life Coaching
can have on your life.

248-330-7005
micki@positiveoutcomescoaching.com
www.positiveoutcomescoaching.com

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Jimmy Fallon and the Emmy Awards

Last night I watched the 2010 Emmy Award Show. Jimmy Fallon was at his best. When was the last time you felt “at your best?”

My philosophy of life is “find something you love to do and get someone to pay you for it.” Jimmy Fallon’s performance as host of the Emmy’s reflected this philosophy. His energy, fun, and joy were contagious.

This morning I experienced the same “fun and energetic” feeling watching The Ellen Show. A couple of years ago, I was an audience member on The Ellen Show, and reaped a double “happy” benefit from being there in person.

Are you doing what you love? Are you passionate about your life and career? If you answered “NO” to either of these questions, you would benefit from hiring a Life Coach.

Life Coaching helps you discover and uncover your passions and potential, some of which you filed away in a deep dark place years ago. Life Coaching leads you to your “HAPPY” place in life. Life Coaching results in building your self-esteem and self-confidence so you can realize those dreams you’ve been saving for the “right time?” Well, my friend. . .The RIGHT TIME is RIGHT NOW.

Contact me for a free session. Maybe Life Coaching is the answer to your unresolved questions.

248-330-7005
micki@positiveoutcomescoaching.com
www.positiveoutcomescoaching.com

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Crossing the Threshold of the Female System

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend with whom I hadn’t spoken in several years. After bringing her up to date on my six children, I proceeded to describe my present job, the education I was pursuing, and my future career objective. At one point, she surprised me with, “Micki, are you still married?” I was taken aback. I’ve been married for almost thirty-eight years. I asked her why she had asked. “Well,” she said cautiously, “you haven’t mentioned David!” I was elated.

In Women’s Reality, Anne Wilson Schaef (1981) proposes that as women, “we must first develop primary relationships with men (or actively seek them) in order to gain our identity and absolution from the Original Sin of Being Born Female” (p.115). I reacted to that concept as being somewhat radical, even ridiculous, and, of course, totally inapplicable to me. My friend’s question made me aware that for many years, I had justified my existence through my marriage. My elation was one of those precious moments of realization.

This was most definitely the first of many epiphanic experiences I would encounter in quick succession relating to my definition of myself. I no longer relied on my husband for my identity. When did it happen? I have crossed the threshold into the Female system and discovered a whole new world of opportunity. My friend kept talking, but I was suddenly busy reviewing my life with just two thoughts: You’ve come a long way, baby; and I’ve only just begun.

My Grandma Rachel, my Bubba, was unquestionably the family matriarch and decision-maker. Yet, at the synagogue with my Bubba, I first realized my inherent inferiority as a Jewish female. Seated in a curtain-covered balcony, I could only watch the men below pray, sing, dance, and read from the Torah. I accepted this role. When I was fourteen, I heard my aunts sob softly over the death of their mother, my Bubba, from behind those infamous curtains, while their brothers openly grieved among the Rabbis and other men congregants in the main sanctuary of the synagogue.

Twenty years later, when I attended memorial services for my father, I knew I had a choice. I chose to worship at a synagogue where women not only sit with men, but are also included in the service. Yet, even today, many Orthodox Jewish women choose to follow the dictates and dogma of old Jewish law, physically and symbolically remaining in the shadows of their husbands.

Much of my adolescent and teenage years were spent sitting by the phone waiting for some boy to call and ask me for a date. I clearly remember not having a date for the senior prom and feeling the pain of rejection and embarrassment. As current as 1991, Lillian C. Woo wrote in Women in Change, that “young girls become women who remain dependent on other people’s acceptance and love” (p.22). This probably made Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinham’s blood boil.

As an experiment, I observed several young people at the Dearborn campus of The University of Michigan interacting in social situations. I saw history repeat itself. Females positioned themselves to get the males’ attention where “females learn to emphasize the use of a cosmetic exterior of self to lure men and to secure acceptance and affection” (Woo, p.23)

My continued female dependency and mindless infusion into the White Male System was reinforced by my mother. She strongly advised me to become a teacher, just in case I needed something to fall back on. What I believe she really meant was that I could teach until I found a husband to support me, or, g-d forbid, if I couldn’t find a husband, I would at least be able to support myself. My mother had been an orphan, on her own at age thirteen and subsequently married at sixteen. She preached self-sufficiency and practiced dependency.

My rebellion was to major in medical technology. My compromise was that I lived at home during four years of college. It was there that, until the age of twenty-two, I succumbed to my mother’s powerful influence and energy. I felt dependent. I felt safe. I felt taken care or. Being “taken care of” can be a wonderful feeling. I began to feel my responsibility in perpetuating the White Male system, but I called it normal.

My first job after college was at The University of Chicago, about a five hour drive from my parent’s nest in Detroit. I finally had a small taste of independence, but within a couple of years, was swept away by my knight in shining armor. I thought I achieved my life-long goal when I walked down the aisle January 15, 1967.

Sir Galahad went off to battle Vietcong only seven months after we were married, and once again, I found myself safely back home with my mother. Terrible thoughts punctuated my days. Becoming a young widow filled me with fear, but it was comforting to know that at least I would not end up with the label of “old maid.” The truisms in Schaef caused me chronic discomfort and my solar plexus reacted as though someone far away who knows me intimately is firing those bullets I feared so long ago.

My husband returned safely. I produced four sons and two daughters in less than nine years. My husband was proud. I was dedicated to his success. I was grateful for the privilege of being wife and mother. Pursuing other fulfillments would have been deemed selfish. Why would women ever want equality when we could be safe?

By the time my children were in school, I had begun to recognize a calling deep with a space that always lodged dead center in my solar plexus. A series of events led me to a career as a trainer. It was through the experiences of this job that I began to allow myself a sense of self-awareness. I slowly discovered that, in spite of what my mother, my husband, my sisters, and society espoused,”self-awareness and focusing on the needs of the self are not the same as selfishness.” (Schaef, p.116). I was not very popular during the early stages of this phase, and it was this lack of popularity that triggered my deepest rage. I was both obsessed and frightened to find out who I really was.

Schaef claims that “the only way to get out of depression is to go into it. The only way to deal with rage is to embrace it. In the process of owning our rage, we can accept it, value it, and work through it to the other side.” (p.154).

I sank to the bottom through a memorable training experience. Holes were punched in my high-sailing vessel by another female trainer who fit securely into the White Male System. She brought me down and I brought myself up. Officially and literally, I faced my reflection in a mirror, another epiphany, and recognized strength as well as weakness. In a split second, I became fully cognizant that I had choices in how I react to what the actions of the toxic people in my environment. I became aware of Anne Schaef’s words regarding what it means to lose one’s life in order to find it.

I claimed myself and crossed the threshold. I wasn’t carried over by my husband as he had so romantically carried me on our wedding day. I stood upright, leaped into unexplored territories and new beginnings. It only took me fifty years.

References

Schaef, Ann Wilson (1992). Women’s Reality: An Emerging Female System. Harper.        San Francisco.

Woo, Lillian C. (1992). Women In Change: The Psychological Development of American Women. Carolina Academic Press.



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