Hooray for Helen Conway!

Who's Helen Conway?

She's the Director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency.

And she says it's "disgraceful" that you can count on one hand the number of female Chief Executives of Australia's top 200 companies listed on the Stock Exchange.

(By the way, they are Gail Kelly - Westpac, Kerrie Mather - Sydney Airports Corporation, Katie Page - Harvey Norman, Alison Watkins - Graincorp and Chua Sock Koong - Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.)

So we may have a female Governor General, a female Prime Minister and now a female Speaker of the House - but women are still miles behind when it comes to the gender pay gap and seeing women in very visible leadership roles.

And it's pleasing to see Helen Conway can see the bigger picture, too. She says men are treated equally unfairly when it comes to flexible work arrangments.

"This is not a women's problem: It's a family issue. I have not seen any immaculate conceptions - it takes two to tango.

"Men are also disadvantaged because it's very difficult for men to take up flexible work arrangements.

"The focus should be on gender equality and making it normal for men and women."

Bring on the revolution, I say!

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Are you living your full potential?

In my work, I frequently speak with people who are disenchanted with their lives.

“I feel so frustrated … I’ve been doing the same thing at work for years and I just can’t seem to get ahead.”

“I feel lost. I know I am capable of doing more but have no idea how to achieve what I really want to do.”

“Maybe I’m just not meant to do anything else. I mean, who am I to want more?”

I find this very sad.

Why we've got to stop talking about "Work/Life Balance"!

Work/Life Balance doesn't exist - and while we continue to strive to achieve it, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.

Why?

The phrase itself suggests a couple things that are inherent in the problem:

What does it take to achieve Work/Life Balance? (is it even possible?)

Frankly, no. It's not possible - and we are causing ourselves untold frustration and disappointment while we keep trying to achieve it!

Why do I say this?

Well, think for a minute about the phrase itself -

The Secret to handling ‘Difficult’ People

(WARNING: Your life as you know it is about to change)

“How can I handle difficult people?”

Answer – you can’t.

“Wait – what? You mean I’m stuck with them in my life?”

Answer – it all depends on how you look at it.

Your Good-Enough List (A critical Sanity-Saving Tool)

I recently attended a three-day women’s festival that I attended for the first time in 2016. It’s never the same the second, third or umpteenth time around is it? First of all, there’s that ‘first time newness’ that we can only get once. “Wow! Look at that!” “Goodness, that’s amazing!” And so on … because we are seeing things through fresh, first-time eyes.

In our subsequent visits, while we look for that same magic, but logically know it will be different than our beloved ‘first-time’. We then start to notice what’s not there that we liked the previous year(s), and lament “But I really liked that!”

So this year, I decided to focus instead on what was new, different and intriguing. And that’s how I came across The Release Tree.