Do You Need an Inner Pep Talk?

Someone I adore told me that someone she adores is feeling unappreciated by their boss.   This usually runs in a pack with others including feeling undervalued, taken advantage of and worst of all, having little or no options.

Sound familiar?

This opposition can wear down your Wow!

Time out.

Here are things you can do to help you feel better and find a better way:

Pep Talk

Be thankful for what you already have.  Tally your blessings to give your gameplan positive perspective.  Go the extra distance and help someone less fortunate than you to really kickstart your karma.

Pep Squad

Ask for help.  Build out your team of friends who can shake their pompoms for you, cartwheel through their contact lists and be your backup boosters on the field.  No win is a solo effort.   Make your success a group effort.

Pep Rally

Rethink your expectations.   This is a good time to really understand your obstacles by researching the opposition.  You may be surprised by what you learn about them as well as what you learn about yourself.   Use this to reinvent your options to level the playing field  – advantage, yours.  Rah!

The Gamechanger

Give me a C for Confidence!  You are worth it, you deserve it and you know it.  Here’s  a post I wrote about sexy confidence secrets and a great post by the World’s Strongest Librarian on confidence to help keep your eyes on the prize.  By doing all of these things with confidence running tackle for you, you will be a contender in control of your game.

Every inner winner needs an inner pep talk.  I am rooting for you!

Get more Wow!

If you want more style notes for people who change the world,  please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

It’s gametime, people.

Hoong Yee

Six Sexy Self Confidence Secrets

Not long ago, after a particularly challenging event, someone I respect very much said to me, ” That was tough.  But you had them eating out of your hands.  You always do.

I do?  I did?

I am sure I tried my best to project confidence but I have to confess – I was a little anxious and being Wow! paled in comparison to getting myself home to my fuzzy pajamas and my knitting.

Some people are just born confident.  Some people “whistle a happy tune and every single time, the happiness in that tune convinces me that I’m not afraid…”.

Here are six sexy secrets that spur my confidence:

Be upfront and personal

Agatha Christie, who knew a thing or two about human nature, said, “Conversation reveals all.”

Be the first one to offer  something of yourself – that you adore Charles Aznevour songs, that you never found a reason to use trigonometry after high school – as a peek into your personality and a place to start a revealing conversation.

Be unapologetic

“If you continue to hang your jacket on the doorknobs and not in the closet, I will simply remove the doorknob.”

You like things just so but others near and dear just could not be bothered.  End of story.  End of doorknob.

Be bold, especially when you make mistakes

“Yes, I’m perfectly sure I know what I’m doing.” Claim to fame or famous last words?

If you talk the talk and walk the walk,  people will believe you.  Even if you end up making a mistake, people will believe in you for trying.

Be good to yourself

In another post, I refer to this secret as an era.  The Era of Not Killing Yourself.  Self confidence, and her partner Self esteem,  sometimes need to sit out a dance or two in the daily pursuit of being Wow!  Should you find yourself falling off your pace, remind yourself that you are in the Era of Not Killing Yourself and head for the punch bowl.

Be the bigger person

As you shoulder your way in to the party, you see him – Mr. Insufferable, chin to shoulder with everyone who is anyone.  Anyone but you, of course.  Before you begin seething beneath your smile, take a deep breath as you begin to Be the Bigger Person by saying hello first.  Quickly dismantle his disdain with a deft compliment.  Something like,  “How nice to see you again!  Have you been working out?”

Who wouldn’t want to have a crowd of people overhear that?

Here’s my personal favorite –

Be able to laugh at yourself

Nothing is as disarming or intriguing as the person who says, “Did I just say that?  Of course it would be me, the one with the shoe obsession to be the first to put my foot in my mouth!”

It makes it clear that you are well aware of your quirks and willing to let everyone enjoy a little laugh at your expense.

My mom, who has taught me some of the best lessons in life, would approve of this.  I got myself into a few pickles as a kid.  I still do.  She would say to me now, as she has said to me so many times before, “Listen, #1 Daughter.  May I remind you that you are just a speck in the universe.  You are not such a big deal.  Lighten up.”

It loses quelque chose in translation but you get the idea.

So…

You will be surprised at the confidence you will inspire by simply following one or two of my secrets. Even if you end up laughing at yourself as a speck.

There is nothing sexier than that.

If you are new to Getting to Wow!, here are more Style Notes and Wow! for you!

Hoong Yee

The Era of Not Killing Myself is Here

It is one thing to be young at heart.  It is quite another to be young caught in a backbend.  Having a physical goal – walking every day, taking the stairs whenever you are not wearing heels,  losing weight,  riding a bicycle or doing yoga – not the psycho schvitz like an ungeheuer you could die from yoga, at least not for me – is a great way to get your body hooked on Feeling Good which is part of Feeling Wow!

It is a universal truth that exercise does wonders for our body, mind and soul.

In this little Note to Self I wrote last month, “I am determined to do a backbend easily.”

For me this is a lofty, lifetime achievement goal.

I have to work on it as much as I can but today was not a good day for me. My first thought was to beat myself up for having been so inconsistent over the last few weeks and then I decided that it would be so much better to feel good that I was working out at all.

Goals are great things, especially when riding on the handlebars with universal reason who forgivingly shifts gears while humming, “The Era of Not Killing Myself is Here”.

If you find you cannot finish your list at the end of the day, you are still way ahead because you did something.  And a little something everyday adds up.  So good for you!

That is something to hum about.

If you want to know more about feeling good, doing good and looking good, check out Getting to Wow!

Hoong Yee

How to Knit a Moment

From the early reaches of yesterday morning to late this cold winter afternoon, I have been in the clutches of a February flu and its faithful demons – chills, fever, loss of appetite, now that I don’t mind so much since any opportunity I have to lose weight is welcome, flu or no flu.

What better time to entice you into getting hooked?

Hooked?

Helplessly hooked into knitting something that will not only cause people to part like the Red Sea and utter, “Wow!” in your presence, will also give you the simple pleasure of creating something by hand.

My Auntie Anna had that effect on people whether she was on stage seated at a grand piano or dashing across 57th Street with a Cortot edition of the Chopin Ballades in her portfolio, if it is at all possible to dash in a pair of Ferragamo pumps while humming the melody the fourth Ballade as she did the day she treated us to lunch at the Russian Tea Room after our June piano recitals.  She could enslave you with one demure and dimpled smile pressing a small giftbox from Lord and Taylor into your hands “for playing so beautifully, you are so talented!” and with a lilting laugh, she would walk away, the shadow of an unforgettable moment with cast by her unmistakeable silhouette.  Tall, slender, always impeccably dressed in her signature cheongsam with a matching fitted jacket, Ferragamo pumps and handbag to match.

Get Hooked on Wow!

For those of you who are new to  Getting to Wow! I wrote in an earlier post that to embark on this journey is a lot like falling in love.  It demands Desire, Vulnerability and Courage.  Quick confession:  I have always desired to be as cool and classy as my Auntie Anna.  I made an appointment with her tailor to have a cheongsam made, vulnerable to the fact I may never carry it off as effortlessly as she did.  Now all I need is the courage and a fabulous quelque chose to wrap around my shoulders should I find myself out on a cool summer evening in my cheongsam cradling a prosecco in my hand.

A Whisper Wrap

A light and lacy dress scarf – I just made that up, dress scarf, what images that conjures! – that finishes off a great dress that you may not have a jacket to wear with.  It is made of lace mohair, so ethereal and delicate, you could wear this anytime you want to frame your face in softness, and oh so gracefully toss over your shoulder as you walk away with a lingering smile.

Confession

Its true.  I cannot read patterns.  Everything I knit, I design.  So there.

However, because of you, dear readers,  I am going to write up my patterns and begin with the Whisper Wrap.  Everything I knit is designed to be simple, to drape well and to be knittable on planes, trains and other journeys.  The Whisper Wrap can be knit over several trips to Boston and back, or on a round trip visit to Taos, where I was part of the Grantmakers in the Arts Conference knitting circle.

Having knit this several times, I highly recommend investing in a pair of wood or bamboo needles.  The mohair behaves much better and it is much easier to work the points of your needles into the stitches.

Look out for the Whisper Wrap pattern, coming soon!

If you want more Wow! and Nonprofit Knitwear, here’s a little video of a knitting circle I was a part of at the Annual Convention for Americans in the Arts in Seattle last June.  Great people doing good, knitting good.

I always learn so much from other knitters.  Thank you all so much for sharing your tips and techniques.  It is truly not about getting as it is about giving.  Except for getting hooked.

Crawling to Wow!

Human beings are a rational group, as species go.  We know eating vegetables  is good for us,  going out with wet hair is questionable and sending textmails while driving is not a good idea.

So why is it we behave irrationally around shiny toys – phones, gadgets, cameras, bathroom scales?

I am having the most aufgereght arguments with my digital scale over a questionable quantity of ten pounds.  It says yes, I scream no.  I approach it nicely in the morning, stepping slowly and as lightly as I can while exhaling any extra air weighing me down.  Of course, if I don’t like what I see, I step on the scale again until I see a number I like better.  This could go on for a while.   Surely there is some caloric benefit from all of this.

I am home with the flu and wrestling with my flu demons – aches, chills, fever – and my shiny toys.  You know what I am thinking, don’t you?  If I’m going to be sick, I might as well drop a few pounds.

Crawling to Wow!

Logic went out the window once the February and the flu caught up with me.  I am so far from feeling good, doing good and – ha! – looking good, so nicht Wow! But the good news is, things can only get better.  From your mouth to God’s ears, I can picture the words falling from the lips of my late mother-in-law, Mildred, like gestoyner broit (Yiddish for “yesterday’s bread”) bouncing off a truck.  I can also picture her applying lipstick and putting on a freshly ironed apron before putting out the garbage and saying, “You never know who you ‘re going to meet.”

Mildred was Wow! She was a WAC, a devoted wife and mother.  And as the daughter of a tailor from the Bronx, she inherited an uptown eye for style.  The feel of fabric, the cut, the styling of a jacket, the effortless effect of so many tailored details in a well made garment.

Well, I am going to feel better soon! I have shoes to design, patterns to write, style notes to share,  a nonprofit to run…

How are you doing?  Are you feeling good, doing good and sigh! looking good?

I would be so farklempt (Yiddish for “overcome with emotion”) if you would leave me a comment and let me know.