Asking For Help is Smart

Don’t Deny Others the Chance to Assist

Recently, I heard from a friend in the hospital who is critically ill. She had been there for 5 days and was calling to let me know. I was so grateful to know what was going on, to be able to pray for her and check on her. I only wish she had let me know sooner. Another dear friend recently learned he has cancer, but reached out to me weeks after the diagnosis. Those are weeks I could have been there for him, helping him sort through solutions, fear and pain.

Most of us have a tendency to put others first, and to not ask for help. And that’s a mistake. Martyring ourselves by saying we don’t want to bother others or trouble them denies us the gifts of love and support. We also deserve help, especially in difficult times.

Some people prefer to go off and isolate themselves while they figure things out,
and I respect that. However, isolation can lead to depression and negative thinking, at a time when loved ones could provide compassion and understanding. Scientists have shown that reaching out to other people during a stressful event is an effective way to improve your outlook. So your perspective could improve dramatically, building emotional resilience.

You never know- you might get some great solutions to problems you are having, connecting you with valuable resources you never knew existed. Share your life, share with your loved ones, and allow yourself to be supported. You are worthy of it.

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

70% of American Workers are Disengaged at Work

Which Means They Are Not Happy and Not Productive- What Can You Do?

One of the most important areas to focus on when dealing with disengaged employees is really very simple: Tie their work to your purpose.

Connecting daily work to a clear sense of purpose strengthens engagement and motivation, both of which are critical to leadership resilience and sustaining team performance over time.

Research on happiness shows people are most joyful and effective when they believe that what they do makes a difference. Show them how the end results of their work benefit others. What is the purpose of your business or corporation? How does it make the world a better place? How do they contribute to that?

Give very specific and clear examples of how their work directly impacts the lives of others. Let them know that every effort, no matter how small, results in this impact. Give them a reason to come to work every morning and to share their enthusiasm.

Consider how to tie work to purpose:

• posting photos in the employee lounge of those who benefit from the work

• posting stories in employee Intranet about how the company makes a difference

• sharing testimonials from customers/ clients/ recipients of the work

Source: 2013 Gallup poll

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The Power of Expressed Gratitude

Do Something Special

Many of us know the power of gratitude but how many put it into action? It’s one thing to tell someone you appreciate them, and that is great. To write it is even more powerful. And most meaningful of all is some kind of gesture that truly expresses thanks.

I am a referrer, a connection, an enthusiastic supporter of those I believe in. If I receive great service from a vendor or restaurant, I rave about them to everyone I know. I’ve been doing this for years. But until now, few have ever explicitly thanked me in a special way.

Track Your Business Metrics

My chiropractor, Dr. Alan Smith of Axiom Wellness in Jacksonville, FL., did something that surprised me. Having been in business here for two years (many years in Colorado,) he analyzed his patient base to see where they had come from. He determined that I had referred the most individual patients to him. He calls it “6 degrees of Snowden,” which really tickled me. I thought it was so smart that he tracked his business like that. It’s a great metric for business growth.

Then he did something unexpected. Instead of just thanking me, he invited my husband and me to dinner at any restaurant we chose. We had a delightful meal on the water with Alan, his beautiful wide Dawn, and their adorable baby Max. It was very special and it really touched my heart. And of course, it made me want to refer more business to him.

What can you do to thank the special people in your life? What experience can you give them to make it meaningful? You’ll be amazed at the impact you have with a small, thoughtful gesture. Expressing genuine gratitude through meaningful action builds trust, motivation, and perspective, all of which reinforce leadership resilience and strengthen long-term relationships.

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The Value of True Downtime

Why Leaders Must Unplug to Think Clearly

Constant connectivity creates constant cognitive load. Email, messaging, notifications, and social feeds compete for attention and fragment focus. Over time, this doesn’t just create fatigue — it quietly erodes the strategic clarity, creative thinking, and emotional regulation that effective leadership requires.

Research and lived experience both show the same thing: stepping away from digital noise restores the mental resources that sustained pressure depletes. When the mind is less cluttered, insight emerges. When attention is allowed to rest, it returns sharper.

True downtime is not passive distraction. It is intentional disengagement — and for leaders operating under sustained pressure, it is not optional. It is a performance requirement.

The Neuroscience Behind Recovery

The brain does not perform optimally under continuous stimulation. Research on cognitive performance consistently shows that the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for strategic thinking, sound judgment, and impulse control — is particularly vulnerable to fatigue under sustained demand.

When leaders do not allow for genuine recovery, the costs compound quietly:

Decision quality degrades — leaders become more reactive and less strategic
Emotional regulation weakens — patience decreases, reactivity increases
Creative problem-solving narrows — the mind defaults to familiar patterns rather than generating new solutions
Stress hormones remain elevated — increasing the risk of burnout, health decline, and relationship damage

These are not signs of weakness. They are predictable consequences of ignoring the biology of sustained performance.

Why Unplugging Strengthens Leadership

When leaders disconnect from constant input — genuinely, not just physically leaving the office while staying mentally tethered to the inbox — measurable shifts occur:

Mental fatigue decreases and baseline clarity returns
Strategic thinking improves as the brain shifts from reactive to reflective mode
Emotional regulation stabilizes, improving relationships and communication
Creativity increases as the default mode network — the brain’s rest-state system — activates
Physical stress markers decrease, supporting long-term health and energy

Technology was designed to create efficiency. Used without boundaries, it creates pressure. The leaders who sustain high performance longest are not the ones who work the most hours — they are the ones who have learned to protect their recovery as deliberately as they protect their priorities.

Recovery as a Leadership System Element

In the Leadership Resilience System, Recovery is one of four interlocking elements that determine how well a leader performs over time. Alongside Regulation, Focus, and Connection, Recovery addresses the specific habits of rest, restoration, and disengagement that allow sustained high performance without eroding health or relationships.

Most leaders sacrifice Recovery first. It feels like the most expendable element — until it isn’t. By the time burnout becomes visible, the recovery deficit has usually been accumulating for months or years.

Even brief periods without a device can reveal how dependent we have become on constant stimulation. When attention is undivided — in a conversation, on a walk, in genuine rest — something shifts. Stress diminishes. Perspective returns. Clarity re-emerges.

How to Practice True Downtime

Downtime does not require a vacation or a weekend retreat. It requires intention and structure applied consistently to ordinary days:

Schedule defined periods to disconnect — block time on your calendar for email-free and notification-free focus, the same way you schedule meetings
Create device-free spaces in your home — the bedroom and dinner table are the highest-leverage starting points
Protect the first and last 30 minutes of your day — these are when the brain is most vulnerable to reactive framing; protect them from the inbox
Build transition rituals between work and personal time — a walk, a specific playlist, a brief written reflection — any consistent signal that tells the nervous system the work mode is ending
Take genuine breaks during the workday — not scrolling social media, but actual disengagement: a short walk, five minutes outside, a conversation that has nothing to do with work

Downtime is not avoidance. It is neurological recovery. Clarity requires space. Space requires discipline.

When Downtime Is Not Enough

For some leaders, the inability to disconnect is itself a symptom — of accumulated burnout, of anxiety that has become structural, of a relationship with pressure that has become unsustainable. If you find that you cannot unplug even when you want to, that rest does not feel restoring, or that you are running on empty despite adequate sleep, those are signals worth taking seriously.

Explore practical ways to prevent burnout before it escalates, or learn more about stress management strategies designed for leaders under sustained pressure. If you want structured support building recovery and resilience into your leadership, leadership resilience coaching provides the framework and accountability to make it stick.

The leaders who sustain the longest careers at the highest levels are not the ones who never stop. They are the ones who have learned when — and how — to stop well.

Good Customer Service- NOT

AT & T Did Not Make This Customer Happy

Have you ever had the experience of dealing with someone where you just could not get anywhere and you were incredibly frustrated, maybe even furious? Enter AT&T business, whom I have used for decades. When we moved to Florida , I set up my business account with them. In the spring, my plan expired. I was exploring savings options and called them to see what they could do on pricing.

They quoted me one price, but when I got the bill, it was much higher. I called and inquired if there was some mistake and they said no, and that was the bill.

So I explored other options and found I could dave over $65 a month with Comcast, bundling my services. I called and canceled my AT & T service.

And then I got my bill. At & T actually charged me $165 for canceling service. They said we had a “verbal agreement” which they refused to produce for me. I never would have agreed to a cancellation fee when I was still exploring options. I explained all this and got NOWHERE. ARGGGHH.

As a thirty year small business owner, I certainly would not treat my clients the way I was treated. There was no flexibility, no opportunity to do anything else.

And what they don’t realize is that as a professional speaker, I encounter thousands of people in my audiences. I love sharing great customer service stories. And unfortunately, this is an example of a bad one.

When something like that happens to you, one of the best ways to deal with it is go work out. Exerting your frustration on a punching bag or by running, biking, swimming or some other physical outlet makes you feel better. You’re doing something good for yourself and releasing the negativity of the experience.

How about you? Ever had a bad experience with your telephone or Internet provider?Email me at orders@firedupnow.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

How to Banish Self- Doubt

Reference Points of Success

We all have times when we doubt ourselves, when life throws us a new curve ball and we just don’t know how to handle it. And frequently that means stress, anxiety, and self-doubt.

Self-doubt often shows up during moments of transition: new roles, higher visibility, difficult decisions, or unfamiliar expectations. It is rarely a sign of incompetence. More often, it is a signal that you are stretching beyond what is familiar. Leaders who learn to manage self-doubt effectively do not eliminate it. They learn how to work through it without losing momentum or confidence.

How do you maintain your confidence when sailing uncharted waters? You use Reference Points of Success™.

Reference Points of Success™ work because your brain responds to evidence, not reassurance. When you document moments where you faced uncertainty and succeeded anyway, you create a personal body of proof.

Use this practice intentionally:

Review your list before high-stakes conversations or decisions
Revisit it when self-talk becomes overly critical or absolute
Update it regularly as your responsibilities grow

Developing confidence during uncertainty is a core part of resilient leadership under pressure, especially when leaders are required to make decisions without perfect information.

Over time, this shifts your internal narrative from “I don’t know if I can handle this” to “I’ve handled hard things before, and I can do it again.”

Quite simply, you make a list of other times in your life when you have encountered a big challenge and you overcame it.

What did you do and how did you achieve it?

What resources did you call upon?

What new behaviors did you put into action?

What worked best?

Now after you have made your list, review it and see what parts of it can help your current situation. You have everything you need inside you to succeed at any challenge. I believe in you.

Confidence is not the absence of doubt. It is the ability to move forward with clarity even when certainty is incomplete.

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Water is Critical to Your Health & Productivity

Are you massively dehydrated?

In many parts of the world, water is a rare and precious commodity. 780 Million people lack access to clean water. And yet in the Western world, we take it for granted, waste it on our lawns and forget to hydrate ourselves.

Every cell in our body depends on water to function properly. Every day, we lose about 8 cups of water, which must be replenished.

A 2% drop in body water can trigger lack of concentration, short-term memory problems and trouble focusing. A 5% drop in body fluids will cause a 25-30% loss in energy; a 15% drop causes death.

80% of North Americans are suffering from dehydration, which causes:

• energy loss
• mental and physical exhaustion
• headaches and stiff joints
• anxiety and stress
• kidney stones
• cancer and diabetes

Even mild dehydration will slow down your metabolism by 3%!

A recent report says drinking 5 glasses of water daily cuts the risk of colon cancer by 45%, and the risk of breast cancer by 79% . Imagine what would happen if you drank 8 glasses of water a day!

Caffeine dehydrates you as a diuretic, so for every cup of coffee or tea you drink, have two glasses of water. Avoid drinking soda. The active ingredient is phosphoric acid, which leaches calcium from your bones, causing osteoporosis.

Carry around a glass water bottle, fill it regularly from the purified fountain at work, and drink it every hour. You’ll be amazed by how much more energy you have and how much better you feel.

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

How to Prevent Last Minute Unpleasant Surprises

Proactive Strategy and Collaboration Make a Huge Difference

Do you ever feel you are at the mercy of others when it comes to meeting your deadlines? Are you frequently caught short in terms of time or resources because one of your clients waited until the last minute to ask for your help? Does one of your vendors let you down on the same service over and over again?

In each of these circumstances, it would be ideal if your employees, clients or vendors changed. But in reality, that’s not very likely to happen. Anticipating needs and planning proactively reduces stress and uncertainty, strengthening leadership resilience when operating under ongoing pressure and tight timelines.

What You Can Do to Be Proactive

A far better approach is to be proactive. Understand that business pressures can be overwhelming, focs on your innate resilience. Ask your customers and clients what their plans are for the next 12 months. Ask them what projects they might need your support with and when the deadlines are for those projects.

Then mark your calendar and check back in with them regularly to see if they are on schedule. Be proactive and notify vendors that they will have work coming to them at a certain time and have them block out time in their schedule for you. This way, you work on your terms at your pace and you are not caught by surprise nearly as often. Clients and vendors usually appreciate the advance planning and everything goes more smoothly.

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Dramatically Improve Your Brand

How to Improve Your Brand

photo from Erica Benson

I recently had the honor of serving on a marketing panel for Women Business Owners. It became clear that many people don’t understand what their brand really is. Here are the core, some of which you may not have considered.

• Corporate Identity

This includes:

your logo

logomark

theme line

corporate colors (PMS, CMYK, RGB)

font (no more than 2)

graphic standard

photos always associated with your company.

In the logo below, the top graphic is a logomark. The logo is the entire graphic with the words attached.

• Theme line / positioning statements In the logo above, which we designed for Selander and Assoc, the theme line “Where People are as Important as the Numbers” tells you who they work with and the next line tells you what they do. Your positioning statement should do the same thing, with some kind of adjective or positive tone.

• Consistent corporate image everywhere Same colors, same font, same artwork, same theme everywhere. In my logo below, the red (PMS 185) and purpley blue colors(PMS 2685) are always used and show up in all my marketing .
Be sure yours is consistent in:

ads
brochures
websites
ezines
business cards
social media
videos
podcasts/ radio
commercials
car wraps, truck art
signage
promo items, shirts, mugs, etc.

• Public behavior of you, your co-workers and your employees A post of your people drunk at a bar may lead prospects to think your company is unreliable. If you behave badly in a public setting, it can ruin your image. (Think Reese Witherspoon.)

• Customer service complaints Handling customer complaints is also part of your brand, which is whyyou should monitor social media or have an RSS feed with the company name and product names.

Anytime a complaint shows up, try to resolve the situation in a positive manner. And if the comment is on google maps, ask happy satisfied customers to comment there.

Recently a large company blithely opened a Facebook page inviting feedback only to have hundreds of angry and dissatisfied customers rant about their lousy service. They took the page down.

Your brand is so much more than just your logo. It is the image and visible presence of your business.

Remember, it takes years to build a reputation and minutes to destroy it. How leaders show up publicly, communicate consistently, and handle customer interactions directly shapes brand perception and reflects executive presence in action.

If you have any questions, email me at orders@firedupnow.com. (For those of you who don’t know- I own a 30 yr ad agency, too.)

Happy marketing

Snowden

To sign up for Snowden’s ezine newsletter on stress, happiness, marketing and motivation, please go to: http://firedupnow.com/firedupemailregister.html

Kindly share this post if you liked it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Are You a Success in Your Own Eyes?

Not long ago, I lunched with an extraordinary young woman who was finishing an internship at a battered women’s shelter. The experience had changed her completely — she had decided to become a social worker. She asked me about my own life, my choices, the path I had taken.

My answer was simple: define success on your own terms. Do what is truly meaningful to you. The families she had helped would never forget her. That meant more than any accolade, award, or degree.

The Leadership Trap: Achieving Without Feeling Successful

Many of the leaders I coach are objectively accomplished. Promotions. Revenue. Recognition. And yet they sit across from me feeling hollow, exhausted, and quietly convinced they are failing.

That feeling has a name. It is what happens when high-achieving people spend years climbing toward a definition of success that was never really theirs — one shaped by external pressure, comparison, and the relentless forward motion that burnout thrives on.

Research on leadership burnout consistently shows that leaders who lack a personal definition of success are more vulnerable to chronic stress, disengagement, and eventual collapse. When success is defined entirely by external metrics, there is no finish line — only a moving target.

What Does Success Look Like on Your Terms?

Defining success for yourself is not a retreat from ambition. It is the foundation of sustainable performance. Leaders who know what genuinely matters to them make clearer decisions, set more effective boundaries, and recover faster from setbacks.

Ask yourself:

At the end of this year, what would make you feel that it was well lived — not just well performed?
Are the goals you are working toward yours, or inherited from someone else’s expectations?
When you imagine looking back at your career from the far end of it, what do you want to have built, contributed, or protected?

The answers are not always comfortable. But they are clarifying — and clarity is one of the most powerful tools a leader can carry under pressure.

Success Is Also How You Lead

In the final analysis, your life will not be measured only by how high you climbed or how much you achieved. It will also be measured by the lives you touched, the clarity you brought to hard moments, and the people who became better leaders because you led them well.

You are already more of a success than you give yourself credit for. The question is whether you are building toward the right version of it.

If you are navigating high pressure, burnout risk, or a season of leadership that no longer feels sustainable, explore leadership resilience coaching or take the burnout self-assessment to see where you stand.