How to avoid brain drain

Lice, strikes and no more mozzarella in any of the stores when you plan on making New Year's Day lasagna.
 

1. Is it the title of a new Coen brothers movie based on the Odyssey? 

2. A feminist podcast starring Tina Fey?

3. Or some of the energy-depleting experiences that decorated my winter break?

What's your guess?

If you think I'm using my random holiday turmoils as an excuse to complain, you've got another thing coming. 

They're actually awesome examples of how brain-drain works— meaning when your mind says "pas possible" to creative work because it's been depleted generating solutions to totally annoying problems. 

I always though that the long ramp-up to making a decision (be it ordering from a bible-size NYC Greek diner menu to deciding whether to pivot professionally) was what drained us the most intellectually, emotionally and physically. 

But Dr. Tara Swart, author of The Source, the book I'm currentIy obsessed with, says that it's the act of making the decision that's the most draining for our brains. 
 

"It is perhaps surprising that although the rumination that leads up to a decision requires mental energy, it's the point of decision making itself that is the most energy-intense for our brains. This explains why reducing the number of unnecessary choices in our day (what to wear, eat, watch, react to on social media) is an effective way to conserve decision-making energy for bigger and more important decisions."

This is why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit each day and why so many people do their most creative work in the morning before their brains have been zapped to death on emails and deciding what to eat for lunch.  

It's also why supermarkets strategically place the candy by the cash register: your brain's made hundreds of small choices by the time it gets to the counter that it's much more likely to crack for candy then. 

So, here are some suggestions for you:

• Reduce the number of small decisions you need to make daily. (e.g. mono wardrobe, batch cooking, delegating)

• Audit your most important decision making moments and your energy when you're making them. 

• Create a fail-safe, energy-generating morning routine that you do without having to think about it.

• Come up with a contingency plan before heading to the supermarket when you're vacationing in a small mountain village and plan on making lasagna for 12 people: what will you make if they're sold out of mozzarella or don't have the right size lasagna pan? 

Sending you much love and brain-saving energy. 

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

Define your timeframe

It was 1999 and I was sitting opposite my therapist, Yael, worrying about what to do with the lease on my 4th-floor walk-up apartment above a Pet Store in Brooklyn.

Even though it smelled like fish food and wet dog every time I walked through the building, my apartment was conveniently located and affordable enough for New York. 
 

Should I extend the lease, and risk staying put for another year, or break it and go who knows where?

Beggars can't be choosers, I thought, but every ounce of my body wanted OUT OF THERE— not just the apartment but NYC all together.
 

I had until the end of the month to figure it all out. 

Then my therapist Yael dropped one of her golden reality bombs into the room: “Zeva, contracts can be broken and calendars can be adapted. There’s only one situation that has a non-negotiable timeframe—pregnancy!” 

BAM! Message received loud and clear.


I walked out of that session with a new lease on life (pun intended).


For the life of me I can’t remember if I extended the lease or not, but once that deadline became a non-issue, my mind lead me to a whole new sea of options (which eventually got me on a plane to Paris).

 

Why am I bringing this up?

Because as the end of the year approaches, we all try to rush to the finish line, jump over hurdles and past milestones to “make it” to the end of the year with all of our goals checked off in a row. 

As if deep personal growth can be squeezed out like the last blobs of toothpaste hiding at the bottom of the tube.

That’s just not how growth works. You can't force it. You can’t cram it it. You can’t expect that by the stroke of midnight on December 31st everything will suddenly be exactly as you want it to be. 

Calendars help us track seasons and collaborate with the rest of the world in an organized fashion. But they are not indicators of where we have to be in our lives. 

You don’t have to start a new job on Jan 1st. 

You don’t have to quit your job before you go on vacation. 

You don’t have to share your vague business ideas with your cousins over your holiday dinner. 

You don’t have to know with 100% certainty what your next career move is going to be when, over smoked salmon canapés, uncle Jean asks you what you've been doing with all of your free time since you left your last job. 

Think of Yael and my stinky old apartment when you feel the weight of the clock (and your loved ones, bless their well-meaning hearts). 
 

Every timetable is flexible, except one, so release the stress of competing with time, and yourself, and move at your own rhythm. 

You've got this!

Photo by Malvestida Magazine on Unsplash

Moving forward despite the fog

We were 20 minutes into our hike in the mountains and my brother-in-law was on his second lesson on how to use a compass. He was speaking to my son but I was listening in slyly to see whether I could answer any of his questions correctly. 

He described a hypothetical scenario. "What do you do when you're hiking in the mountains and you can't see past your feet because the fog is so thick."

My son said: "You stop and wait." 
Thierry answered: "That's an option, yes..."
Then I added, half jokingly: "You don't go on the hike in the first place."
Thierry laughed: "But what happens if the fog comes in unexpectedly?"
My answer: "You panic and cry!"

I can't remember what Thierry said after that and I've just sent him a text to try to find out (cliffhanger, alert!)

Why? Because my mind started racing.

Thierry's Survivor/Koh Lanta quiz was a great metaphor for what my clients experience before beginning our work together: they're in a panic because they're in a thick fog professionally and the longer they wait for the fog to clear up, the heavier, darker and scarier it seems to get.

They can't run back to the car (turning back the clock is out of the question) and they're desperate to find that crystal-clear mountain range up ahead in the distance where a picnic rock awaits their tired tush.  

So what do you do when you can't see your path clearly but you have to move forward?

Do you wait for the fog to clear?
What if it just gets thicker? 
How long do you wait?
Can you find a point somewhere, anywhere, that can help you move ahead?
Maybe its the sound of a river nearby.
Or a light source.
Or maybe if you calm down and listen to your heart, there's a North Star that you can set your compass to now?
So that you can take another step ahead.
And another. 
And another.

Just remember: the entire path doesn't have to be crystal clear for you to feel your way towards your destination. 

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Not your problem

Over the last couple of years I’ve had the immense fortune of speaking with over two hundred women about what they want most in life.

From Tokyo to London by way of Montreal and Paris, the most common “problem” I hear is: “I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life professionally and I’m scared of making the wrong decision.”

The thoughts ricocheting inside their brains sound like this:

• “What am I legitimately good at?”

• “What do I really want to do with my life?”

• “How can I be certain that I’ll make the right decision?”

• “What’s the perfect next step for me?”

You know what l've learned from speaking with and coaching women who share such similar thoughts and feelings about their future? 

The best way to find the answer to their “problem” isn’t to dig in it, pick it apart and dissect it. Nor to hold it up on a pedestal and cower at the heels of its powerful presence.

In fact, the best way to solve the “problem” is:

1) To politely ignore it.

2) To turn the lens on the thoughts about the “problem” instead.

Basically, you solve your “problem” by questioning the questions you use to find the answers. By thinking about your thinking, you develop new ways to think. 

We all assume that our thoughts are rigid and 100% real — like permanent black marker streaks on a pale wood table top. They are alarmingly true and NOT going anywhere. 

But that’s not the case: thoughts are as nimble and flexible as you allow them to be. And the key to changing them is to start thinking about them. 

This process, called metacognition, is about stepping back and doing an audit on your thoughts. What thoughts are moving you forward? What thoughts are keeping you stuck? What thoughts would you give up if you could? What do the people you admire most think? What would it be like to think those same things? If you were giving advice to someone you love who has the same “problem” as you, what would you tell them?

“It’s so tempting to dig into the problem, or dig into the details. What you want to do is get people to think about their thinking [instead],” explains Dr. David Rock, director of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of the best-selling books 'Your Brain at Work', 'Quiet Leadership', and 'Coaching with the Brain in Mind.’

The goal is to increase insight, meaning realizations and connections that happen internally. AHA moments. Epiphanies. “Prises de consciences,” in French. 

Those moments when a ding goes off in your brain and you suddenly see the world in a totally different way.  Not because someone gave you the answer, but because a new connection was made inside your mind that flung open a whole new set of doors. 

“What we found is that coaching conversations with insight are dramatically more likely to create real change. You think of insight as just a moment where your brain really changes in a way that releases a lot of energy, you see things differently, ” says Rock who teaches leaders how to think better and problem solve more creatively using science-backed research.

There’s literally nothing like that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing deep in your cells that you found the answer to what you were looking for, am I right?

So next time you’re stuck on a “problem,” politely put it aside and do an audit on your thoughts around the “problem” instead. 

PS. Click here to hear the full interview with Dr. Rock on the awesome podcast The Science of Success.

Serena of the south west

What’s it like to realize that you’re not the person you thought you were halfway through your life? 

Exhilarating? 

Terrifying? 

Liberating? 

Nauseating? 

All of the above?

Let me tell you something about a little discovery I made this summer: I’m good at sports. 

That’s right. I AM ATHLETIC.

You see, I always thought that I was terrible at sports. That my world was with the “artists,” the creatives, the intellectual misfits, the indie rockers. 

This belief started in Junior High School. When I was a shy and uncomfortably overweight pre-teen who’s parents had recently divorced. 

I had been playing the violin for a couple of years in elementary school at my mom’s urging. When it was time to chose a Junior High School my mom convinced me to apply to Mark Twain For the Gifted and Talented (I kid you not, that was the name!!). A special public school that bussed kids in from all over Brooklyn. 

You had to have a “talent” to get in. And I got in with my violin playing (which actually sounded more like cats screeching to an agonizing death).  

The rest of my friends from elementary school made it into the “Dance and Athletics” programs.

From the very moment I was selected for music, I became certain that I couldn’t also be athletic. There was a lot of proof in the pudding—as a chubby prepubescent kid I couldn’t climb a rope or do arm lifts to save my life. 

I wasn’t part of the confident, athletic crew. I belonged with the creative, sensitive crowd. 

Over the course of my life, I’ve experimented with lots of physical activities from swimming and jogging to yoga. But me, athletic, not in a million years. 

That’s just not part of my identity. That’s not of my DNA. 

But this summer something shifted. I decided to take some tennis lessons while vacationing in the south of France in the small village where my mother-in-law lives.


I signed up for a course with the 73-year-old French coach named Jean Pierre who was my husband’s coach as a kid and is still kicking it strong! 

My motivation? If I’m being honest with you, << Test First Name >>, I though it was a legitimate escape from my motherly commitments and a chance to take in some fresh mountain air. Plus my son and my husband are tennis-obsessed and it was a way to taste their world and see what all of the fuss was about. 

Thirty minutes into my first course, after Jean-Pierre showed me how to hold the racket, how to position my body in order to hit the ball at the right angle, he stopped our training and came up to the net. 

He said, “Are you sure you’ve never played tennis before? You’re really good at this.” 

And then he went on:

“You pick things up quickly.”

“You’re determined.”

“You observe and adapt quickly.”

“You’ve got great sense perception.”

“You’ve got personality.”

I laughed at his compliments a bit awkwardly, but still let them linger in my mind. 

What he said about me didn’t totally surprised me. He was pointing out parts of my character and personal narrative that I believe are true, but that I've never applied to tennis. 

I saw myself in the person he described even though the context was unfamiliar.

You see, << Test First Name >>, you and I have inherent skills and talents that we think are reserved for certain contexts, certain vocations, certain professions. 

But what happens if we decide to apply them elsewhere, in a field that excites us but that’s totally unknown? 

What if we can actually thrive using our inherent skills in a space that’s foreign? What does that say about us?

What parts of our identity lay dormant because we haven’t yet decided to experiment who we are in a new environment?

I don’t plan on becoming the next Serena Williams, but I do have a tennis class this Friday that I’m excited about because it’s a new chapter in my life that makes me feel alive in a completely different way. 

What inherent character traits can you plant in a new pot?

Maybe you’ll realize you’re more than who you think you are. 

That there are sub plots to the narrative of your life that are waiting to be explored. 

Find me in le club

There’s nothing more exciting than the birth of a dream project. Especially when you know how freaking awesome it’s going to be! 

Which is why you must check out the Business O Féminin Club coming to Paris next month and read my interview below with its founder, Véronique Forge-Karibian. 

I met Veronique for coffee a few months ago at the suggestion of my good friend Ajiri and we hit it off immediately. Véronique and I chatted about our past careers in marketing and journalism and how we’re both passionate about helping women express their full potential professionally. 

Six years ago Véronique launched businessofeminin.com, a dynamic media hub devoted to women in business, and it’s been her dream ever since to bring her platform to life.

Apollonia Poilâne fell in love with the idea and decided to lend Véronique a gorgeous space down the road from her family's famed Parisian bakery in order to test the concept from October 1st-18th.  

The pop-up will consist of a café serving Poilâne treats, a shop stocked with innovative women-owned brands, a library of empowering reads, a lovely lounge to chill and chit-chat and an inspiring events series of workshops and conferences to accelerate women’s personal and professional development. 

I’ll be participating in the project by hosting two vision board workshops on October 11th and 18th.

If you’re in Paris and interested in coming to any of the events use the special -20% promo code. (BFLOVERS)

photo by: Ajiri @Madame de la Maison

Read my Q&A with Business O Féminin Club founder Véronique Forge-Karibian

What inspired you to create the Business O Féminin Club? How long has the idea been brewing? What made you decide to finally go for it?

I organised a couple of events in Paris and London for the Business O Féminin community, including a sold-out breakfast with Arianna Huffington that over one hundred women attended. I realized then the need to go beyond one-off talks and instead offer a program that could accelerate women’s professional development and help them acquire new skills and develop their talents. I also think we need places where women can learn, share and connect with women outside their professional networks in order to create more diversity and inspiration.

What was the hardest part of pulling this project together? What challenges seemed insurmountable and how did you overcome them?

The hardest thing is always to convince people to embark in your adventure, sponsors for example. Apollonia Poilâne, CEO of Poilâne, was the first to believe in this project and support me with a space to host this club. I am grateful for her support so early on to bring this project to life. We were fortunate to also have ENGIE’s enthusiastic support within days! It’s rare for such big organisations to lend their support so quickly. With the coaches and experts, they were also very positive and saw the value in bringing all the different skill trainings in one place.Finally, the women professionals I encounter on a daily basis are excited and find this format to be innovative but also much in demand.

Six months from now, looking back, what do you hope people will say about how their experience at the Club affected them and changed their lives?

I hear so many women questioning their professional and personal lives yet they don’t know where to start. I hope that our workshops and meet-ups will give them the knowledge, skills and confidence to make the right decisions and empower them to make positive changes in their lives. We have had women contact us for courses for all kinds of reasons from wanting to change careers (e.g. banking to start up) to just learning a new topic such as personal branding. I hope all these women will look back and talk about their experience and how profound a change we were able to make in their lives, whether through learning a new skill, gaining confidence, meeting new people and so on.

What do you personally hope to learn from this project?

I want to how learn to create the right environment for our audience. This includes the venue, decorations, themes, content, communications and the economics behind it all. Through my work at Business O Féminin, I was fortunate to have a wide network of exceptional women who could be partners: Valérie Gerbi, artistic director at Merci concept store was just the person we needed to decorate and theme our space with Ajiri Aki from Madame de la Maison adding a touch of beautiful vintage and Amanda de Montal bringing her exceptional scented candles to the club.

Where will people find you during these next few weeks? What events and experiences are you looking forward to the most?

I am looking forward to spending my next three weeks at the club meetings, participating and learning as much as possible about what we can improve for next time. We have decided to cover a wide range of topics from personal branding and public speaking to learning how to code and how to go about starting a new business. Our coaches have varied backgrounds such Olivia Penichou who previously was Communication Director for Christine Lagarde. We will also host special evenings such as the one organised for La Maison des Femmes de Saint Denis, an organisation that helps sexually harassed women and FGM (female genital mutilation) victims to rebuild their lives. We hope to be able to raise money for the founder Ghada Hatem as we are very inspired by their work. The other important meeting will be end of November “Pitch night” which enable start-ups who want to raise funds to pitch in front of business angels and VC’s.

What’s next?

Business O Féminin Club will last three weeks in October but we plan to take all our learnings and create something bigger and more permanent in the very near future.

Hope to see you at the Club!

PS. For the full calendar of events head over here. The direct links to my workshop are here (Oct 11) and here (Oct 18). Spots are super limited and the prices are very friendly so get on it! And don't forget to use the BFLOVERS promo code for a 20% discount. 

Ziplock back discovery

For the first time in my adult life, I did it. I truly checked out. Didn’t squeeze in any work calls. Didn’t outline any blog posts. Didn’t respond to any emails. FOR FOUR FULL WEEKS! 

It was the first time I was fully present for all of my Big Fat French Summer Vacation. I realize that for my American readers, this “achievement” may seem like a twisted joke. “How freaking hard can it be to enjoy your month off, lady? Lemme get out my handkerchiefs and cue the violins.” (you need to say this with a strong Brooklyn accent)

But truly checking out of everyday life, of the emails, the notification pings, the to-do lists, and the nagging voice in your head wondering if you’re doing enough, if you really deserve your break, is much more complex than it seems. 

So much so that before I signed off for the summer I not only created “The Self-Love Summer Road Trip” guide for you, I also committed to doing it myself. 

My “road trip” took me down to the South of France to visit my mother-in-law where I played tennis for the first time and learned I was actually pretty good at it. 

Then I traveled to my native NY where I saw extended family I hadn’t seen in decades, visited the college campus I attended 25 years ago, and spent two nights in Brooklyn in a house I hadn’t entered since 1995. 

But the highlight of my trip was what I found at the bottom of a giant green storage bin filled with my old stuffed animals. 

That bin had been there for decades, untouched. But this year, milling about in the upstairs room of my mom’s house with more free time than usual, I opened the lid, shifted some stuff around and discovered a Ziplock bag at the bottom of the bin filled with a bunch of those origami-style folded square notes that were all the rage in High School, and a cherished, long-lost love note from the first person I ever kissed. 

I stopped in my tracks, sat on the bed, and read through them all. Giving myself the time and attention to relive and reminisce about the person I was back then, the thoughts that dominated my mind as a kid, the perception that people had of me, the questions they asked, the secrets they confided in me. 

I let myself get lost in my thoughts. I even sat myself in a hammock after everyone went to bed for several nights in a row and just let my mind run free, savouring and retracing some of those flashes of memory that came surging back from the words and images on those pages.  

I came back to Paris feeling oddly giddy. Exhausted, of course, from the let lag and the insane back-to-school delirium, but none of it powerful enough to dim my summer high. 

In my sessions with clients I’ve been more animated and dynamic. Picking up on signals faster. Grinning wider and gesturing more purposefully. More natural and open about myself. 

Words seem to be flowing out of my mouth effortlessly. My heart feels like its beating at a slower rate. I’m more honest with my loved ones about my feelings. It’s as if the quality of everything around me has quadrupled. 

What’s going on? 

Where did this come from? 

How long will this last?

My guess is this: The Self-Love Road Trip that I embarked on in search of my favorite flowers, my preferred ice cream flavors, the people and things to express my gratitude to—all of these stops along the Self-Love Road Trip turned out to take me to a much deeper destination. 

While searching out these simple things, I was taking the time to be with myself, with my thoughts, with some of the lost treasures of the past that today’s rhythm races over. 

All of this has helped me build a more loving connection with, well, moi! 

I choose to take my time. 

To scale back the volume of my schedule.

To say no to opportunities.

To express my feelings more openly. 

To create time in my day for silence.

To play with and shape my thoughts to serve me.

To dedicate time to cultivating my voice. 

I’m on a mission to make these Self-Love discoveries a staple of my life. 

What’s your Ziplock bag discovery from your summer that you want to preserve and protect going forward?

Something about yourself that you learned to love and want to cherish above all else?

Self-love summer roadtrip

What if this summer became your self-loving springboard to the rest of the year? A map to your emerging tastes and desires that you can unpack once the pace picks up again in the Fall.

Summer is a prolonged, precious break from reality. A time when routines change. When everything slows down. When you give new things a try. Reconnect with friends and family. Hike, swim, drink litres of rosé. 

But how many times has summer’s special glow been zapped away your first day back home? 

What if this year you decided to freeze-frame summer’s most essential parts and use this season to truly get to know yourself?

Since the stakes are low and the pace is slow, summer is the ideal time to dissect your daily decisions to see who or what’s driving your everyday moves. 

Who’s really calling the shots?

Is it the “true” you? 

Is it what you think people expect of you?

Is it what your family wants? 

Is it what you think looks great on Instagram?

Start practicing your decision-making skills on decisions that don’t matter much.

The best way to build muscle for those big decisions down the road (e.g. changing careers, starting a business, going back to school) is to start getting familiar with the real you.

The one that isn’t performing for others. The one that isn’t searching for recognition. The one that isn’t taking care of everyone else or living up to other people’s expectations. 

The best time to find that person is when the stakes are low. When the biggest decision on the line is what ice cream to order (not to say that ice cream isn’t a serious matter!).

So if you want to try out some new sensations and get to know yourself better join me on this Self-Love Summer Road Trip 2019.

Guts you don't regret

Tis the season of report cards, graduation ceremonies, and mid-year reviews. A time to appreciate the gradual yet often excruciating achievements of the year (like future tense conjugations in French).

It’s also the time when a big day shows up in my calendar. Not my birthday or wedding anniversary or my kids' birthdays. None of that. 

It’s July 6th. The day I did something so scary I literally thought my heart would explode in my chest. Even thinking about it now makes me quiver a bit. 

On July 6th, 1999, I boarded a one-way flight from NYC to Paris, leaving behind my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my four cats, my job, my apartment, and my beloved Brooklyn. 


And for no real reason.


I mean, there were reasons. But they weren’t life-or-death reasons. This wasn’t anything like the exoduses my ancestors took to save their skin generations ago. 

It was just that I had this nagging feeling in my belly, this constant, flickering sensation since childhood that I had to live in Paris. 

And I knew that if I didn’t listen to this feeling I’d get sucked into the rat race of life in NYC and regret not making a move forever. 

So I wrangled up everything I had in me and boarded that plane. The poor woman sitting to my right was so worried about my whimpering that I told her the broad strokes of my story. Reassuring her that everything, really, was ok. That I was doing something I wanted more than anything, it’s just that I was a total emotional wreck.   

I landed in Paris the next morning and calmed down the minute I spotted my friend Jessica at the arrival gate. Jessica and I went to college together and did our Junior year abroad in Paris at the same time. She wasted no time sticking around the states after graduation and came right back to Paris where she met her soon-to-be husband Charles at film school.

They were the ones that made my Paris experiment a reality. Charles lugged my giant suitcase up the four flights of stairs to their cute flat on rue Leon Blum in the 11th and they set me up on their living room coach for as long as I needed. 

Every morning I’d wake up with a view of the gorgeous building across the street and marvel at the shirtless JFK Jr look-a-like who paced around his apartment all day.  

I needed no more convincing, this was where I belonged. 

For the next few weeks Charles and Jessica took me everywhere they went. We ate charcuterie and drank pitchers of cheap red wine at the local bistrots while I noted down bizarre French idiomatic expressions in my little carnet. We went to the public pools during the heat wave. We dodged the firecrackers thrown at our feet while heading across Place de la Bastille on Bastille Day. We bought some cheap tickets to Corsica and rented a little hut on the beach and made refried beans in a shoddy casserole to save our money—for more wine! 

I felt like I was living someone else’s life. I had no strings on me. No obligations. No job. No apartment. And my French was a disaster.


There were definitely moments of “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?” panic.

But I was doing it any way. Taking it one day at a time with a mix of queasy fear and determination to make the most of it!

It’s been 20 years since I boarded that plane.

It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And by far the most important decision of my life. 

I’m dying to know, what’s the scariest thing you’ve every done that you’re grateful for today? 

That when you think about it you say, “I’m so damn proud I had the guts to do that!” 

Just hit reply and let me know.