What does it take to be a Renaissance Woman? Ask Wendy Muhammad.

May 20, 2020 | Business, collaboration, empowerment

What does it take to be a Renaissance Woman? Ask Wendy Muhammad.

Wendy Muhammad is the author of THE MIND OF AN ENTREPRENEUR. She is a Multi-Million Dollar Business Developer, Thought Leader, Crisis Manager, Trainer, and International Entrepreneur. Currently, she is also President and Director of Business Affairs for the Minimally Invasive Vascular Centers where, along with her Business Partner, she has developed a progressive new business model for outpatient surgery centers and micro-hospitals. She has expanded the brand and model to major markets throughout the US and Africa.

Wendy Muhammad is also a Business and Real Estate Developer, Emotional Intelligence Coach and Philanthropist who is creating effective new, cutting edge business models offering tools and strategies to help conscious entrepreneurs navigate the world of business.

I’m Dr. JP Martin, author of HOW TO BE A POSITIVELY POWERFUL PERSON, Founder of the Triad West Inc., Positively Powerful Programs, and Host of the new Positively Powerful Success Friday Webinars. Wendy Muhammad will be my Guest on May 22nd. I’ll be asking Wendy for her secrets of success, $trategies to navigate the world of business during COVID-19, and more. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

Hope to see you this Friday, May 22nd at 6 PM MT, 9 PM PST. It’s Free. After you register, you will receive the Zoom information. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/success-webinar-tickets-105889299746

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Island Liaison founder Claudia Kaercher will receive the Positively Powerful Woman Nonprofit Leadership Award on October 16, 2020.

Feb 21, 2020 | conversation on leadership, diversity and inclusion, Domestic Violence Prevention, empowerment, Leadership, Women

Island Liaison founder Claudia Kaercher will receive the Positively Powerful Woman Nonprofit Leadership Award on October 16, 2020.

2020 Positively Powerful Honoree Claudia Kaercher

I received an email from my friend Marian Yim, Esq. who nominated Claudia Kaercher to be a recipient of the Positively Powerful Woman Awards. Here is her message: “In 2014, at the PPW event, my friend Claudia Kaercher told me that she was inspired to found a nonprofit to aid Pacific Islanders. She founded Island Liasion, dedicated to healthcare, education, and culture. Last fall, when news of a Marshallese baby-selling scheme broke, she had a network in place and was the best prepared person in Phoenix (and perhaps the nation) to get these women the healthcare and resources that were needed.

I met with Claudia Kaercher and discovered that she was also a long-time employee of Southwest Airlines, the Official Airlines of the Positively Powerful Woman Awards, and Triad West client Mountain Park Health Center was the organization she chose to take care of the pregnant Marshallese women so desperately in need of support and medical attention. Claudia Kaercher served with and was mentored for five years by Mrs. Cindy McCain, founder of the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT).

Please meet nonprofit leader Claudia Deleon Guerrero Fajardo Kaercher, the Positively Powerful Woman, who will be acknowledged for her many contributions on October 16, 2020:

I am Claudia Deleon Guerrero Fajardo Kaercher of Chamorro-Filipino descent from the Mariana Archipelago in Micronesia a region in the western pacific. My family and I spent 10 years on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands while my father worked for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands U.S. administration. I graduated from John F. Kennedy High School, Tumon, Guam a U.S. Territory. I was one-year old when the U.S. military on Bikini atoll conducted the thermal nuclear “Castle Bravo” test in 1954.

As a resident of Arizona for over 35 years, I am an active and positive contributor to my community and acknowledge all for embracing my Micronesian background.

Claudia Deleon Guerrero Fajardo Kaercher

I founded the nonprofit organization Island Liaison to serve as a resource providing awareness of locally available health and educational agencies and providers to help Pacific Islanders with focus on the Independent island nations of the Freely Associated States (FAS), i.e., the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau. They are under the Agreement of Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the US and living in Arizona which allows them to freely travel within the US without a visa and with no time restraints. These Islanders are not eligible for many federal or state services. Unlike our neighboring Islanders from the US Territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), who are U.S. citizens and have the ability to access many federal or state funded services.

I’m a Fellow of Leading For Change Fellows 2014/2015 I’m a member of Lau Kanaka No Hawai’i Hawaiian Civic Club of AZ, Phoenix Chinese American Citizens Alliance and, Mountain Park Health Center (MPHC) Diversity Site Council. I serve on the Board of Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) AZ and the City of Phoenix Police Chief’s Advisory.

I provide community outreach to Arizona State University (ASU) Asian Pacific American Studies (APAS) program Asian Pacific Advocacy, Culture, and Education (APACE) Academy and Maricopa Community Colleges Chancellor Advisory.

My previous community service includes Commissioner for the City of Phoenix Pacific Rim Advisory Council (PRAC), Board member of Asian Chamber of Commerce AZ and, Member of Governor Janet Napolitano’s Asian-American Advisory Council.

During the 2010 U.S. Census, I was the Partnership Assistant for the Pacific Islanders in Arizona and on occasion assisted the state of Nevada.

My Awards include the Arizona Aloha Festival “2011 Kokua” Fostering a better understanding of Pacific Islanders, ASU “2015 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion” and, the Pan Asian Community Alliance Tucson “2019 Friend of Pan Asian Community”.

This is an open invitation to all who know, would like to know or whose lives were touched by Claudia Deleon Guerrero Fajardo Kaercher. Join us. Become a sponsor. Attend as a guest. Connect and make an impact at the Positively Powerful Conference, Friday, October 16th at ASU Community Union, Sun Devil Stadium, 500 East Veterans Way, Tempe, AZ. The Education Summit breakfast and registration begin at 7:30 a.m. Speakers program from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Following the Summit, we host the Positively Powerful Woman Awards in celebration of the accomplishments of the 12th Annual Positively Powerful Woman Award recipients. Sponsorship Information and Registrations are available online.

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How to create a new career with a retirement transition coach

Nov 29, 2018 | Business, Coaching, empowerment, Women

How to create a new career with a retirement transition coach

There are all sorts of challenges when you’re faced with retirement. The non-financial ones can diminish the financial ones if you’re not prepared. This is where having a dedicated retirement transition coach can reduce the stress of change, give you great ideas, ask questions that open the door to the future or be your accountability partner.

Plan ahead for your new-found freedom

In retirement, there are no reviews, prescribed activities, lunches, work you feel is important to do. That might seem like a wonderful thing now. However plan ahead because otherwise you might find that you’ve wasted the first few years of retirement, fallen into a rut, missed connecting with others, or become a couch potato.

This is where a retirement transition coach is useful. With a retirement transition coach, you’ll be able to take “leaps forward” planning and getting into new work and non-work activities that are meaningful and productive. You’ll have a neutral coach who shares your goals with you and wants you to win in this important time of your life. Remember the work, persistence, and stamina it took to get the career going? Retirement takes work too. You deserve an empowering, experienced, resourceful, success-oriented coach in this transitionary process.

How to handle the word “No” when it’s something you really wanted.

Jul 25, 2018 | Coaching, creativity, empowerment

How to handle the word “No” when it’s something you really wanted.

“Losing” a job you really wanted can take you down if you let it. (“Losing” in quotes because you can’t lose a job you never had or just weren’t right for.) Nevertheless, I’ve been there. I once really wanted to work for X company and their answer was, “No.” I went through a mini-spiral of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, the five stages of grief Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler talk about. Their work applies to people. And, I know from that personal experience and the struggles I help clients work through that these 5 stages also apply to important situations, relationships, coveted jobs – where there is a high expectancy for a favorable outcome in one’s favor or where there is an outcome that is not understood or desired. Another way of saying this is you see yourself thriving and contributing there but “they” don’t.

“Losing” a job you really wanted can take you down if you let it. Here are some ways to stop a potentially downward spiral.

My advice, do whatever it takes to get through stages 1 through 4 quickly. Just accept it. You heard “No”. Be accountable for your part in what happened. Whether you think about the short term (a job interview) or long-term (you were employed there) situation before you were told “No”, what did you do or not do? What did you pretend? What cues did you miss? And here’s the big one, what did you not know then? Those are the money questions. You are not in control of other’s decisions but this process of self-awareness will get you feeling more in-powered by that outcome.

So, get a grip. Begin preparing for the next situation. Be a detective, analyze what came before the “No”. Learn what you didn’t know then but do now and go learn it. Do some googling. If you choose to stay in the valley of the doomed, you are sacrificing the precious talent you have that some other company is hungry for and that you are now uniquely prepared to provide. If I can be of service to you, let me know.

What if you were responsible for everything, even your feelings?

Jul 6, 2018 | Business, Coaches Corner, creativity, empowerment, Leadership

What if you were responsible for everything, even your feelings?

First off, let’s agree that responsibility and burden aren’t the same. Our feelings are our responsibility; they are triggered by our beliefs…if that makes you uncomfortable…great! Don’t avoid it. Accept it and say ‘thank you’ – yay!. And…let’s agree that emotions and feeling aren’t the same either.

So what are feelings, really? In my work, feelings are what are the sensations that are triggered as a result of beliefs. And beliefs are developed through experiences. Your beliefs – conscious and unconscious – trigger your actions. What you say and do or what you don’t say or do. You have more control over this than you might think.

Responsibility is the way to your freedom

This brings us to “responsibility”. This word has many connotations. When we break the word into its two parts, it is literally the ability to respond. Respons/ibility = Ability to respond. Some people think of responsibility as duty/obligation. With this thought and way of living, responsibility is like a have to – a hammer – that can bring with it feelings of resistance, regret, and good if you do and bad if you don’t. Then there is the definition for responsibility that implies legal, financial, or moral accountability and compliance. And there is the responsibility provided by existentialist, Jean-Paul Satre who wrote “To be responsible is to be the “uncontested author of an event or a thing.” This responsibility is about authorship. This is the definition that I use in my work. It is a foundational word for transformation.

When you operate from this kind of responsibility, you are saying that you have the power to choose to be your own life-author and are accountable for the choices you make even when you don’t feel it. If your feelings don’t trigger your actions, what might? What could you choose to base your actions on other than how you feel? What could lead to changing how you think, produce, believe, act and live? Try these criteria for your actions: higher calling, vision, legacy, commitment, love, your future. Choose. You are the author. You decide. One bit about training/teaching your brain. If this choice-based way of thinking is out of your comfort zone, you may feel uncomfortable. Don’t let your feelings get in the way of what you want to experience. Read more in my book: How To Be A Positively Powerful Person. It’s a practical user-friendly guide to transformation.

Scientist Lisa Feldman Barrett (December 2017 at TED@IBM) makes a distinction between feelings and emotions. For the science behind emotions, feelings, and how to train your brain, watch this TED Talk. You will see how your brain is wired so that if you change those ingredients today, you are basically teaching your brain how to predict differently tomorrow, and this is what she calls “being the architect of your experience”. She will also make the connection to responsibility,

Another take: “You are your own best teacher. Accept responsibility. Blame no one. You can learn anything you want. True understanding comes from reflecting on your own experience” Source: Warren Bennis, Professor and Founding Chairman of the Leadership Institute.

Every Day – Now

Jul 2, 2018 | empowerment

Every Day – Now

Every new day is an opportunity to create, follow through, invent, an adventure. And with every adventure, you never know how it will turn out. All you can do is keep looking ahead, take your best step and trust that you will get where you were supposed to be or at least a place that looks like it. Life is an adventure.