Heartmanity's Blog

There’s a lot of talk about how we sabotage our personal and professional success. We’ve been told that we’re often working against ourselves and to beware of the ego. Self-sabotage is sometimes depicted by that overused image of a devil on one shoulder versus an angel on the other. Psychology Today even refers to self-sabotage as the enemy within. Webster’s dictionary defines sabotage as “an act or process tending to hamper or hurt.” These viewpoints suggest that we need to be on guard, ready to protect ourselves from the invisible saboteur within us. But is there another perspective that is [...]

Why do small and big businesses fail? And what makes a successful business? How do you know if you're headed in the right direction as a business owner?

There are many troubling statistics on the failure rate of start-ups and small businesses. Maybe you're one of them, but you're surely not alone.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

As a business owner, you know better than anyone just how important your employees are to your company's success. You may give them guidelines to align them with your vision, but they are the ones who implement it. Ultimately, the success of your products or services, as well as your company’s customer satisfaction, are driven by your employees’ day-to-day interactions.

Unfortunately, your staff members can burn out, making you lose efficient or talented workers causing profits to bleed through excessive turnover. The question is, can you effectively reduce employee burnout and lower [...]

Many companies across all industries are struggling to hire quality employees and keep them. The complaints that I hear most often from company owners and leaders are relentless turnover and attrition. Employee attrition is a huge problem. Once hired, some people don’t even show up for their first day of work or quit after a few weeks.

Therefore, company hiring and training costs have surged. These challenges are compounded by poor employee attitude, a sense of entitlement, and hires lacking the internal motivation to do the work.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Employees across all industries complain about micromanagement. In my work as a business consultant and leadership coach, micromanaging surpasses all other complaints. It is one of the quickest ways to shut down productivity, creative minds, and passionate employees. And it’s one of the leading reasons why employees flee a company.

Micromanagers are not deliberately trying to cause distress in the workplace even though the outcomes are usually fed-up employees and burnout. In fact, people who micromanage rarely intend to disempower those they supervise. They often mean well and don’t realize [...]

We’ve all experienced the consequences of poor communication or a lack of effective communication in the workplace: strained employee relationships, poor morale, non-productivity, misunderstandings,… the list goes on. It’s a leader’s job to set the tone and standard for communication in any organization.

Effective leaders know that they must set the example for organizational culture. When good communication skills start at the top, the model can promote emotional intelligence and trust throughout an organization.

Mary Parker Follett who was once regarded as the Mother of Modern Management said, “Management is the art of getting things done through people.” Managing people is an intricate dance between art and science. Understanding what motivates employees is key, so they develop professionally, feel fulfilled, meet company goals, and have high performance.

Many companies struggling with employee motivation have a disconnect between how they choose to reward their employees and what motivates them to perform at their best. This disparity is understandable because motivating employees is not cut and [...]

A few weeks ago, I was faced with the stark reality of innocent short-sightedness. A woman who had hearing loss asked me to add captions to my emotional intelligence webinar. This omission inspired me to study the subject more closely.

You probably have heard about inclusive workplaces. Thanks to disability rights activists and growing awareness, the term is used more frequently now than in the past. As a result, you might have wondered what it means or how to make your website or workplace more accessible to a wide range of people.

It's been a crazy time for everyone with the pandemic. Not only do we now need to keep up with our work, but unexpectedly we can be required to quarantine due to Covid-19. And if you're a parent, it's even trickier as school shifted to virtual learning so you're responsible for this big change as well. We haven't yet found our new normal so mindfulness is even more important. 

Are you feeling more overwhelmed than usual with work stress? Is multitasking not helping you keep up? Is your mind racing so much at night that you can’t sleep? Yep, it’s time—time to carve out a few minutes daily to [...]

Our meritocratic culture emphasizes the importance of packing your resume with job-specific skills along with hard skills like software, statistics, different languages, or coding—but without soft skills (a.k.a. emotional intelligence), that knowledge becomes virtually useless in the workplace.

Surveys show that hiring managers are more likely to prefer candidates who use soft skills to make themselves more likable over candidates with lower emotional intelligence. “Hard skills” may help you get a foot in the door by landing you that first interview, but it’s up to you to hone your soft [...]