SigmaU Blog

Your parents were rightly concerned about the shady friends you may have had during your school years. My parents always wanted to know who I was hanging out with and warning me when they felt uneasy about someone’s character. Our friendships and associations have a massive impact on our actions and character. This got me thinking about positive friendships and those associations that achievers look to have. Here are the four P’s to look for…

1. Push You!

Great friends, mentors and associates push you to be a better version of yourself. If you say you’re going to run 5KM and you only run 4KM, a great influencer will hold your feet to the fire. They will make you uncomfortable, so you reach your potential! They will challenge you when you settle for mediocre thinking or goals. They will stretch your current beliefs and replace skepticism with possibility thinking. The wrong person in your circle will tell you that you “work too hard.” None of my...

The right coach can accelerate your growth like nobody’s business! I’ve invested in different kinds of coaches over the years from retired corporate executives to mid-sized coaching companies to Tony Robbins coaching programs, so I’ve been around the block.

Here’s what I can tell you after spending a quarter of a million dollars on personal development and coaching: they ALL helped me in one way or another grow smarter, faster and learn more about myself. What I also learned is that most coaches provide what is referred to as “status coaching”. Each week or month, I would report in on what I completed, what I didn’t, lessons learned etc.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with status coaching, I benefited from it for decades.

Then I discovered High Performance Coaching and it was like the clouds rolled back and I experienced and was exposed to coaching on steroids! High Performance Coaching is a curriculum-based and science-backed...

Group coaching, whether it be within your organization or outside, is a fantastic way to level up and step outside your comfort zone!

In order for group coaching to be successful everyone who is part of the group must have similar beliefs and values regarding coaching and want to succeed. It has to be understood that the group coaching space is a safe place to share and learn with one another.

The Format of Group Coaching

The format for group coaching can vary week to week or month to month depending on when your group meets. It is helpful as a coach to lay out an agenda of the different topics to be covered at each session. During the sessions the coach will ask thought provoking questions that will lead to a powerful discussion. The coach may take the opportunity to challenge a participant’s answer to help them dig deeper or work through their challenge. Other members within the group are encouraged to offer their knowledge from their own experiences to their team member...

The mind is such a powerful force! I recently listened to an Ed Mylett podcast with Trevor Moawad. They talked about just how powerful our minds are and what we feed it matters a whole lot! They talked about the science behind our words and how much power we give our words. When we talk, our brain goes to work to close the gap and make our words our reality!

They shared two powerful stories which I will leave to you to hear about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yzIXv9XY7Q as it’s definitely worth the time. Your mind will be BLOWN when you hear about someone who lost a championship by self-prophesying defeat and someone who DIED because their negative beliefs took over!

Awareness

I used to really struggle with negative self-talk. For me, my struggle was body shaming. I used to remind myself several hundred times a day how awful I looked. I spent time in therapy bringing awareness to this toxicity and have released something that once had a powerful grip on me. My...

I have not always had energy. I have not always wanted to jump out of bed and start my day. I have dreaded a work week and lived for the weekends.

There was a time, when I was so depressed that I didn’t want to leave the house and rarely did so. I remember sitting on the couch and it was the day of a friend’s wedding and I wept because I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I didn’t want them to see how out of shape I was! In fact, I hid from social media for several years for fear of judgement about my appearance!

So when I recently had someone comment that I “always” have so much energy, I felt like I needed to share a bit of my journey with you and share that I wasn’t a miracle. It was small, incremental habits and changes that have brought me to a place where I feel like I’m living a ZESTY life!

Z – Zealous Belief

One habit I needed to adopt was a zealous belief that what I did mattered and that my...

The word sacrifice isn’t sexy or exciting for most people but it’s evidence of a highly engaged team! Check out what I mean…

Sacrifice Ego

Team members who are full engaged in the company’s mission and the role they play don’t care who gets the credit for success. They will easily put aside their own time “on the stage” to put someone else in the spotlight. They will also readily correct you if you praise them for something that their team member in fact was responsible for achieving and be quick to give kudos and heartfelt congratulations to other team members. Where there’s engagement there’s low ego-driven behaviours1

Sacrifice Time

Highly engaged team members are willing to put in more time without recognition to make a project come together or to keep a client happy. It means that they’ll jump in the car and personally deliver an order to make sure that the client is happy! It means that if they’re working on...

I had a coach who would often probe for greater detail by asking “I’m curious Nikki….” followed by “why do you feel that way”, or “what else could it be” questions. He taught me an incredibly valuable lesson and that is the power of being curious!

Being curious is a strong desire to know or learn something. How true! When we are closed-minded or have already made assumptions, we are not open to learning a new perspective or hearing others’ views. By contrast, when we are genuinely curious we open the door for greater connectivity.

1. We Breakdown Walls

Genuinely seeking to understand another’s perspective and gently asking a curious question gets others to open up about their viewpoint. The important part is actually being curious and non-judgemental in your approach. You can see that “I’m curious why…” could sound judgemental if it is not delivered with a sincere desire to be open to...

What is pessimism? It is a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen. It is a lack of hope or confidence in the future.

I’ve been reading a lot about mindset, the power of the subconscious brain and the science behind just how powerful our thoughts are and the impact that they have on our life and happiness. During a recent Zoom call between family members, it was abundantly clear how pessimism and optimism are powerful opposing forces.  While I listened to two people describe the same job, one hating every minute of it, feeling like he was being “used” by corporate evil bigwigs, the other saw the job as quite satisfying. He described loving the freedom of the work in comparison to the chained version that the other family member described. It got me thinking a lot about optimism and pessimism and so I wanted to share the following thoughts with you.

Price #1 – Lower Levels of Happiness

It seems quite apparent that...

Strategy by definition is a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

Most might assume that all companies have strategies that align with their goals, but you might be surprised! I’ll be honest, as we were growing our company very quickly, we barely had time to come up for breath let alone develop a strategy. I’d see the numbers growing and excitedly announce that next year “we’re going to double our sales” - meeting adjourned! I laugh when I think about it now because I wasn’t motivating anyone. In fact, they all probably thought I was a few screws loose or at a minimum were frustrated and confused about where to start. Our leadership team has since made a habit of using a strategic plan and updating it once a quarter and the benefits have been incredible. Here’s what we’ve seen…

It Starts with Transparency

The more willing you are as a leader to share the vision, goals, and direction of the...

There’s a lot of talk about employee loyalty but not a lot of leader loyalty to team members. A recent incident involving an irate and borderline abusive client got me thinking. How loyal am I to my team members?

Willingness to Walk Away from Money

The customer is not always right! Contrary to popular belief, there are situations where the customer is downright rude, unable to regulate their emotions and hurl abuse at your team even when your employees are not at fault. Are you willing to confront the behaviour and risk losing the client? This is the test of loyalty to your team. I’ll admit that in the early years I bought in to the notion that the client was always right. I’m embarrassed to admit it but I always appeased the client and apologized even if it risked implying that my team member was in the wrong when they weren’t. Having been in business for twenty years, I’ve seen the majority of client interactions be smooth and positive. I’ve...