Blog

Resilience

Business Lessons from TV: Better Call Saul

BusinessLessonsFromBetterCallSaul
Spoiler alerts! Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

As a video storyteller myself, I have my favorites in television and film. There are certain shows that feel like friendships to me. When a series I know and love comes to an end, I feel regret because I'll miss seeing my friends!  

Television shows are created, just like the work I do. Basically, it starts with an idea, a strategy session(s) with other people, followed by writing a script and then the visual representation we watch on a screen.  

Read more…

Progress or Momentum: What Solopreneurs Need Most

MomentumvsProgressBlog_UpLevelC

A few months ago, I was feeling a little stagnant in my business. While progress had happened, momentum felt stalled. There I was sighing loudly while staring at my computer screen thinking, "this just isn't working!" Then, I had an ah-ha moment.

I thought to myself, "Where have I been effective in the past? What has yielded results? What problem do I know I can help others solve?" After pondering those few questions, it dawned on me. "Promotional campaigns!" 

In my marketing career I managed …

Read more…

Feel Attacked? Learn Your Stress Communication Style

DefensiveCommunicationStyles

We are living in a time where we are surrounded with confrontations and conflict. As you know, it can be quite stressful!  

When you get stressed out, emotions run high, and you may find yourself reacting in a way that doesn’t portray you as the best version of yourself (or your personal brand).

A prominent psychotherapist, Virginia Satir, pointed out that we react to both stress and threats to our self-esteem (ie. think intelligence insults) by taking on one of five defensive communication st…

Read more…

Toxic Boss = Big Loss

radioactive-leak-2014302_1280

A friend of mine and I were talking recently and she started to tell me a story about one of her clients. The client has been a great referral source for her in the past, yet she is starting to become aware of strange happenings lately. Things that feel… uneasy, upsetting. 

·      Misunderstandings despite written expectations. 

·      Outbursts of frustration. 

·      Disgust toward submitted work.

·      And plain old blame. 

Knowing my friend and her work ethic, after listening for a bit…

Read more…

Bad at Disagreement? Learn the 3 D’s of Conversation

KeryKnutson_2020_HR-4-FAVE

We have lost the ability to talk with each other. We no longer know the flow of conversation. If disagreement were a class in school, most adults today would fail. We don’t converse, we speak from a soapbox. When we find disagreement, many avoid, silence or “unfriend.” We don’t create a dialogue, instead we write emoji-filled one-liners back and forth. 

We are failing at human connection and certainly suck at disagreement. Specifically, we fail at moving through disagreement into stronger relat…

Read more…

The Broke-In Brain: Overcome Resistance, Finish Creative Projects

writing-horse

When I think of a wild horse I see him running free. His mane is whipping in the wind as he gallops across the expansive plains. To “break” a horse means to train it so it can be ridden. This involves modifying its behavior from boundless to behaving within the bounds of human control. Then, it’s called a “broke” horse. 

This sounds a lot like our human brain throughout life. 

As we grow into adults, we lose our creativity or our “wildness.” Inc.com shares a study that revealed we are 96% less…

Read more…

Reading for Resilience: My Quarantine Book List

KeryKnutson_2020_HR-73

Back when I was a Marketing Director for an organization, I found it challenging to read outside of work. If you can relate, then this recap list will likely help you.   

Perhaps due to the unprecedented global quarantine or the fact that I landed a corporate client with 100 people who needed some inspiration on resilience I got really curious about how we get stronger through struggle. How do we withstand insurmountable challenges? What has been learned already to get us through? 

Here’s a sn…

Read more…

Coaching: Top Skills for Leaders During Disruption

KeryKnutson_2020_HR-18-FAVE

The word “coach” on its own may conjure up images of a whistle-wearing leader in gym clothes carrying a clipboard but coaching today is much more than that. There are executive coaches, accountability coaches, health coaches and many more. Coaching is different than mentoring, separate from therapy and distinct from training and consulting. So, what is coaching?  

During my certification as a coach I adopted this definition, “coaching is a growth-promoting relationship that elicits autonomous m…

Read more…