Kate Davis - DIGITAL

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Kate

davis

balancing life with humour

A speaker, writer, mother, comedian and actress, Kate Davis has the unique ability to find humour in any situation and diffuse stress.

Theatrically trained in England, Kate returned to Canada to a successful run on Canadian stage. From the theatrical stage to the many stages of motherhood, Kate found her newest passion at an open mike one night at a local comedy club.

Now, a twelve-time nominee at the Canadian Comedy Awards and star of her own hour-long comedy special on CTV and the Comedy Network, Kate has appeared on Breakfast Television, Star TV, Toronto 1, Prime, WTN, TVO and CBC Radio One the Debaters. Kate tours globally with her comedy and speaking and has opened for President Bill Clinton and Barbara Walters.

01 Tips for Balancing Life with Humour

06 Advice About Intuition From Business Leaders

02 Work/Life Balance Goal

07 Tips to Reclaim Control

03 Replace your Could with Should

08 Strike a Better Work/Life Balance

04 Affirmations

09 Suggested Reading

05 Intuition

Doing What You Love

Finding what you love can be hard work, the key is to always try new stuff and find not only what you enjoy but also something you admire. Whether it’s a new language, pottery classes, and writing, joining a community theatre… Always be producing even it it’s for 5 minutes a day. This is Key to balancing your life.

accept where you are

Once you accept where you are, you are able to be more present to the life you are in and that’s when you can change everything.

Get Rid of the “Shoulds” Replace Them With “Coulds”

So often we use Should when judging someone’s actions or our own and all this “shoulding” has a heavy weight as we judge ourselves against this imagined standard.

Bringing Humour Into Our Lives

We choose anger because we don’t know what else to do to get the results we want. Whether it’s in the playroom or in the boardroom. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Humour makes people act nicer to each other. Humour motivates people to work harder and feel better about themselves. Humour thrives on inclusivity and so does the workplace.

It’s not about the next laugh it’s about not taking ourselves too seriously

Put a twist on what stresses you/exaggerate your stress

Laughter wasn’t created in a vacuum it needs people to spread it

Your mood affects people around you

Laugh out Loud

Fun cancels out stress and brings everyone into the moment

Become a Character

Bugs Bunny, A Robot, Cowboy, Opera Singer, Rock Star. Just be more playful and don’t take yourself so seriously. Sing the Blues, write a rap song and sing it at the dinner table.

Let Go Of The Inner Critic!

Always Listen To Yourself

Your intuition will always lead to answers and your fear and guilt will always lead to more questions. Whether it’s a feeling in your stomach or a voice in your head. Never second-guess your internal compass.

We All Deal With Stress Differently: “The Tending Instinct”

This is a natural process of dealing with stress. Respect each other’s differences. Today’s crisis is tomorrows great joke.

Don’t Play the Martyr

People in our lives learn by example, live to your fullest potential and follow your dreams.

Letting Go Of Negative Thoughts

A great way to do this is with “Affirmations” Write out all your negative beliefs about yourself (if one person was to say one of these thoughts to us we would never speak to them again but we can say it to ourselves 10 times a day) and then write them all out in Positive. Get rid of the negative ones, burn them, or throw them in the trash! Then whenever a negative thought comes back replace it with the new positive one. After a while your life will start to change and no longer will your negative beliefs hold you back from creating the life you want.

Visualization & Relaxation

Like an athlete visualizing crossing the finish line first, visualizing can be used for anything you want to accomplish in your life. Even if it’s for 2 minutes a day, focusing on your breath and quietly telling yourself to let go of your tension from your head to your toes. Then visualizing where you want to be in your life. Visualizing has huge health benefits both physically mentally and emotionally.

Paint Brushstroke Natural Texture Mint Green

What Is A Work/Life Balance Goal?

Work-life balance goals need to be SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Framed. Most people will have a few or several SMART work-life balance goals which when combined and achieved will result in a good work-life balance.

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From the book “Love Yourself, Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay

Exercise Replacing Your “Shoulds”

As I have said many times, I believe that “Should” is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use it, we are in effect saying, “Wrong” Either we are wrong, or we were wrong or we are going to be wrong. I would like to take the word “should” out of our vocabulary forever and replace it with the word “Could.” Could gives us choice and we are never wrong. Think of five things that you “Should” do.

i should...

replace your should with could

i could...

AFFIRMATIONS

NEGATIVE BELIEFS

POSITIVE BELIEFS

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INTUITION

Harvard Business Review

One decision-making tool—human intuition—seems to offer a reliable alternative to painstaking fact gathering and analysis. Encouraged by scientific research on intuition, top managers feel increasingly confident that, when faced with complicated choices, they can Just trust their gut. Indeed, a survey that was conducted in May 2002 by executive search firm Christian & Timbers reveals that fully 45% of corporate executives now rely more on instinct than on facts and figures in running their businesses.

http://www.ctnet.com/pr/releaseDetails.asp?prid=151

Investor’s Business Daily

FAST Company’s John Byrne climbs a steep learning curve “... I’m learning to follow my intuition.”.

http://tinyurl.com/6j7pv

Bizjournals.com - USA

DON’T ignore intuition

Almost all business owners I’ve worked with have a bad story of what happened when they ignored their intuition.

http://www.bizjournals.com/moneycenter/story.

html?id=3156

Forbes Magazine

“The Golden Gut”

At best, an intuitive leap can mark a breakthrough. “When you’re entering an area where the unknowns are high, and experience is important, if you don’t rely on intuition you’re cutting yourself short,” says Howard Gardner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard University.

http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/

Hunches.html

Intuition At Work

article by Roger Frantz

What do Chrysler chairman Robert Eaton and Albert Einstein have in common? They both found value in using their intuition!

http://tinyurl.com/6575y

Advice About Intuition From Business Leaders

Michael Eisner

CEO of the Walt Disney Company

“Balanced emotions are crucial to intuitive decision making.”

Donna Karan

Fashion designer

“One of our greatest gifts is our intuition. It is a sixth sense we all have — we just need to learn to tap into and trust it.”

Masaru Ibuka

Founder and chairman of Japan’s Sony Corp.

Asked in an interview, “What is the secret of your success?” He said he had a ritual. Preceding a business decision, he would drink herbal tea. Before he drank, he asked himself, “Should I make this deal or not?” If the tea gave him indigestion, he wouldn’t make the deal. “I trust my gut, and I know how it works,” he said. “My mind is not that smart, but my body is.”

Carly Fiorina

Chief executive officer, president and chairman of Hewlett — Packard

“Engage your heart, your gut, and your mind in every decision you make.”

“I think leadership takes what I call a strong internal compass. When the winds are howling and the storms are raging and the sky is cloudy so you have nothing to navigate by, a compass tells you where the north is, I think when you’re in a difficult situation, a lonely situation, you have to rely on that compass to tell you if you’re doing the right things for the right reasons in the right ways. Sometimes that’s all you have.”

Tom Peters

Management consultant and best selling author

“Leaders trust their guts. “Intuition” is one of those good words that has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, intuition has become a “soft” notion. Garbage! Intuition is the new physics. It’s an Einsteinian, seven-sense, practical way to make tough decisions. Bottom line, circa 2001 to 2010: The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and to trust their intuition.”

Richard Abdoo

Chair and CEO of Wisconsin Energy Corporation

“As we move to a deregulated marketplace, we don’t have this slow process of hearings and review and two years to make a decision. We now have to make decisions in a timely manner. And that means that we process the best information that’s available and infer from it and use our intuition to make a decision.”

Tom Prichard

Vice president for marketing at LeapFrog

“We use gut instinct a little bit like scientific principle, where we’ve got a hypothesis — a spark that comes from gut instinct — and we’ll try to validate it with teachers, children, and parents. If there’s a big difference between our research and our instinct, it sends up a red flag. Many times we find the instinct was correct, but that in the research, the vision didn’t come through well enough. Other companies might walk away. When we’ve got a great feeling about a product, we don’t walk away.”

Chuck Porter

Chairman of advertising agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky

creator of the BMW Mini campaign

“When it comes to creating advertising, we don’t research it. We don’t believe in testing ads with focus groups. We know that kind of research doesn’t ever work. So when we finish an ad, the system we use is, Do you feel it? Do you feel when you look at this ad that it’s going to resonate with people? Will it reach out and grab them? Basically we use instinct, because we know the audience so well.”

Doug Greene

Chairman of New Hope Communications

“If I don’t feel good in my stomach about a decision,” Greene told me, “I don’t care if the numbers say we’re going to make a billion dollars. That’s how important intuition is to me. It’s an actual feeling either way. When it doesn’t feel good, it’s just like a stomachache or a nervous stomach. and when a decision feels right, it’s like a great meal.”

Simon Woodroffe

Founder and Chairman of the YO! Sushi chain of restaurants

“So what I do now is instead of deciding whether to do it or not, I simply say, ‘right Simon, your job for the next three months is simply to research this project’. Whether you do the project or not is irrelevant. At the end of three months, you have a knowledge base that provides you with the information on whether to do it or not. The rest is intuition — does it feel right.”

WORK/LIFE BALANCE

TIPS TO RECLAIM CONTROL

If you’re struggling to achieve work-life balance, you’re not alone. Understand how

to better manage your time, detach from work and care for yourself.

Once upon a time the boundaries between work and home were fairly clear. Today,

however, work is likely to invade your personal life — and maintaining work-life

balance is no simple task.

This might be especially true if you work long hours. Technology that enables

constant connection can allow work to bleed into your time at home. Working

from home also can blur professional and personal boundaries.

Still, work-life balance is possible. Consider your relationship to work and ways to

strike a healthier balance.

Married To Work? Consider the Cost

If you’re spending most of your time working, your work and your home life might be negatively affected.

Consider the consequences of poor work/life balance:

fatigue

When you’re tired, your ability to work productively and think clearly might suffer, which could take a toll on your professional reputation or lead to dangerous or

costly mistakes.

POOR HEALTH

Stress can worsen symptoms related to many medical conditions and put you at

risk of substance misuse.

LOST TIME

If you’re working too much, you might miss important family events or milestones.

This can leave you feeling left out and might harm your relationships.

strike a better work/life balance

As long as you’re working, juggling the demands of career and personal life will probably be an ongoing challenge. But by setting limits and looking after yourself, you can achieve the work-life balance that’s best for you.

setting limits

If you don’t set limits, work can leave you with no time for the relationships and activities you enjoy. Consider these strategies:

manage your time

Give yourself enough time to get things done. Don’t overschedule yourself.

learn to say "no"

Evaluate your priorities at work and at home and try to shorten your to-do list. Cut or delegate activities you don’t enjoy or can’t handle — or share your concerns and possible solutions with your employer or others. When you quit accepting tasks out of guilt or a false sense of obligation, you’ll have more

time for activities that are meaningful to you.

detach from work

Working from home or frequently using technology to connect to work when you’re at home can cause you to feel like you’re always on the job. This can lead to chronic stress. Seek guidance from your manager about expectations for when you can disconnect. If you work from home, dress for work and have a quiet dedicated workspace, if possible. When you’re done working each day, detach and transition to home life by changing your outfit, taking a drive or walk, or doing an activity with your kids.

CONSIDER YOUR OPTIONS

Ask your employer about flex hours, a compressed workweek, job sharing or other scheduling flexibility. The more control you have over your hours, the less stressed you’re likely to be.

CARING FOR YOURSELF

A healthy lifestyle is essential to coping with stress and to achieving worklife balance. Eat well, include physical activity in your daily routine and get enough sleep. In addition, aim to:

RELAX

Give yourself enough time to get things done. Don’t overschedule yourself.

VOLUNTEER

Evaluate your priorities at work and at home and try to shorten your to-do list. Cut or delegate activities you don’t enjoy or can’t handle, or share your concerns and possible solutions with your employer or others. When you quit accepting tasks out of guilt or a false sense of obligation, you’ll have more

time for activities that are meaningful to you.

SUPPORT SYSTEM

PROFESSIONAL HELP

If your life feels too chaotic to manage and you’re spinning your wheels worrying about it, talk to a mental health provider. If you have access to an employee assistance program, take advantage of available services. Creating work-life balance is a continuous process as your family, interests and work life change. Periodically examine your priorities — and make changes, if

necessary — to make sure you’re keeping on track.