As part of my life work, past work and studies, as well as owner of Live Simple, Love Life & Always Dream my role has been to help people create a life of balance, ultimately living in happiness and joy.

"Life of Balance" means not only work life and personal life, but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. There are a lot of different elements, levels and concepts to these, but today I want to speak to the root of how to obtain any balance. And that is with self-awareness.

We cannot obtain anything without first looking within ourselves and asking ourselves, "Am who I am on the inside consistent with the person people perceive me to me on the outside? Am I truly living the life I want to be, being the best me I can be?" A lot of times our inner selves have different intentions than the message we are delivering to others.

Being in sales, I have to be constantly aware of who I am and how I am being perceived. I have to deliver with integrity and confidence. In being self-aware also realize that while communicating - 97% of communication is non-verbal. What that means our tones and pitches, the words we choose to use, our enthusiasm or lack- there-of, body language (smiles can be heard!) and also *our active listening skills* are all a part of this.

Everything we do, is communicating a message when we are interacting with others.

Active listening skills are the key to developing relationships. What are active listening skills? This means a few things.

*Most important 1. Listening to understand the other person. Not only what words they are using saying, but the mental, emotional state in which they are conveying their message. Is this person upset? Are they happy? Every emotion is somewhere between those two extremes. If being supportive, your job is to help someone from whatever state they are in to leave the conversation happy, feeling delighted they have been handled with care.

2. Listen to understand the other person. We should be listening to understand what the other person is saying, to see their point of view first - being respectful - listen without thinking to react. We listen for all sorts of reasons, to learn who a person is, what they are doing in their lives, to solve a problem and or to accomplish a goal. When you understand the message of what they are communicating, recite it back to them, using "I understand...."

TIP: folding your hands and locking your fingers or touching your fingers actually engages the listening portion of your brain. Pay attention in TV Shows or Movies, everyday life, who are the people doing this? I do this sometimes even when I am on the phone.

People can hear if you are listening or not! Be self-aware.

I know this is a little lengthy but what I want you all to take away from this are a few things1. Is who you are, who you want to be seen as?2. Are you being consistent with whom you are on the inside and the message you are conveying to others? Pay attention and do some self-awareness checks after a few interactions, how are

people responding to my interactions with them - in person and on the phone?3. Every interaction counts4. Communicating with others is 97% non-verbal5. Am I actively listening?

Working, Living, being happy is all about interactions which each one has a life cycle, of the messages we are conveying to others, our ability to listen and then to respond.

I hope this is helpful and perhaps we could do a few workshops on perception. If anyone has anything they'd like to talk about, please know - I am always available. I love you all and I love to see you happy as much as possible.

"Not every day is going to be sunshine and rainbows, but the point is to be happy to just be and that everyday is better than the last"