Today my networking challenge I’m speaking with Teresa Bell. Teresa is the author of EXCELerate Your Energy: 10 Microsoft Excel Tips To Supercharge Your Life. I’m really excited to speak with her this morning and get energized. Thanks so much for sharing your tips with us Teresa!
1) Why is energy so important for our career?
Energy is so important to all of our careers because it represents who we are. If you’re stuck in a rut and not feeling good about yourself then when you try to get your career going, the interviewers are going to see right through you. They’re they‘re not going to want to do business with you. When you have that energy, it represents who you are and how you feel about yourself in the world around you.
2) What are some other shortcuts to get energy besides coffee?
First of all in my book, Excelerate Your Energy, the first thing that I talk about is that you have a choice of whether or not you want to be energized each and every day. A lot of people ask me, what does it Microsoft Excel have to do with energy. I’m a Microsoft Office Trainer and I travel the world and teach people how to use Microsoft Office. I noticed that when a lot of people came into my classroom, they weren’t very energized and that’s not the best way to represent yourself and your company. So they asked me, where do you get all your energy from? I tell them that it’s a choice that I make everyday. What I decided to do was link up some of the Microsoft Excel shortcut keys with some of the tips on how to get energized. One of the very first steps is what do you do when your computer is not working properly? For a PC its CTRL+ALT+DELETE. So my very first tip in the book is CTRL+ALT+DELETE and that’s reboot, make a decision that you’re going to be energized and that you want to be energized each and every day.
3) How can we stay positive in a stressful environment?
Create your own peaceful oasis and get prepared before you get to that oasis. One of the shortcut keys in Excelerate Your Energy is about doing a 3D formula. A 3d formula in Microsoft Excel is where you get to link all the different worksheets together. So, how I correlate that to working in a stressful environment and getting prepared for that is working on the mind, the body and the spirit. Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is to make a mental decision that I will have a great day. I just make that decision it doesn’t matter where I am and it can be any City or any town I make that decision. Then I try to workout every morning. I absolutely hate to workout everyday but I do it because I know its going to make me feel good. In a stressful environment, I’m actually setting myself up so that if stress is coming to me, I am putting on armor I have for mysel mentally, physically and spiritually, so that I can prepare myself for a stressful situation that might happen.
4) How can we stay positive working with negative people?
If you know that someone is going to come at you and you know that they’re going to be negative to you, have your excelerated energy in script prepared. When I was in my early 20s, I used to be a purchasing agent and I absolutely hated that job. I worked in a negative atmosphere but most importantly the people that hate us, our suppliers, they were really negative and one of our suppliers actually had a really filthy mouth. He would swear at me and would catch me off guard I didn’t know the words to actually come back at him because he was our supplier. My boss and I got together one day and we created the script to tell him and its sugary sweet. We made it sugary sweet because we didn’t want to make him mad but we knew it would still sort of make him mad. One day he called me and he was really mad and used a really bad word with me. I was feeling uncomfortable but I had practiced the script. The script was, “My goal and desire is to help you but speaking like this will not get you anywhere. If you continue to speak like this I have no choice but to hang up.” Another script that I try to teach people when I teach them communication is to say the, “Hmmmn…that’s interesting.” Using little tag phrases or come up with your own script to prepare yourself for when negative people around you. If you prepare yourself beforehand by creating that oasis that problem will be eliminated.
5) What are those things that energized people do that we should be aware of?
Energized people should be aware for this. First of all control+alt+delete, reboot. Make that decision that you actually want to get energized. Once you’ve created that decision, make that decision for yourself. The next Microsoft excel tip is F11. F11 is the shortcut key for making charts and that means chart out your life. In times our dreams get diminished. I want to get people back in the dreaming again about what they could do if money was no object and the situations that we’re in where no object. My book has the key to people that feel stuck in your career and stuck in your life.I want them to start going back to thinking about where they want to be in their future. Chart it out the way that you want to happen for yourself. Put it out there just like an vision board. Pinterest is hot right now, you can start putting together your vision board on what you want to be in the world. Create a life for yourself on your vision board.
6) At the end of your book, what are your book challenges is all about?
At the end of a chapter, I have people do an energy boosting exercise. Its actually a book where you are the project. So you read what the concept is, I’ll ask you questions about how you can be more energized. For example, one of my questions is, who are the negative people in your life that suck the energy out of you? I’ll tell them to right down the names and then we come up with a plan. Its not just about reading you’re actually putting the actions in place.
7) What is one thing you wish you would have known as a young professional women just starting out in her career?
When I was still growing up, my parents had the same friends, the same job, and the same house forever. I always thought that when you made a choice you kept with it. But one of the things I wish I knew when I was a young professional was its okay to make a change. You’re not going to let anybody down. A lot of people think that they will let their parents down because they spend a lot of money in education to focus on that one job, one career. But sometimes when you get to know one career it sucks life’s energy out of you and you’re not having fun at. I think its really important to realize that you can actually change your mind. Do something totally different with your life if you wanted to as long as you’re having a fulfilled life that’s the most important thing – the money will follow.
8) Where can they find you online?
I have a website called excelyourenergy.com and there are lots of great tips how to get more energy in your life. You can actually can sign up for free energy boosting tips that will come to you twice a month usually on a Sunday. I’m also going to offer your audience a 10% coupon here if they want to purchase my book on Amazon.
