If you have ever doubted a woman’s ability to improvise, you’ve obviously never witnessed a mom in action during a crisis. A mom is essentially a female version of “MacGyver” — watch her take a shoestring, a shopping bag, the contents from the bottom of her purse and in under five minutes flat a six-year-old will have an award-winning Halloween costume. Crisis averted. Now imagine harnessing and applying that kind of power in your business.
There’s more to improv than laughs –
At Fuqua, Duke University’s Business School, students are being taught how to effectively handle the unexpected through improvisation exercises.
“…there’s a connotation that [improv is] associated exclusively with comedy, though that’s not the case at all. It’s not comedy and it’s not acting-it’s re-acting…” explains Robert Kulhan in an interview with BNET.
As a woman, you have an advantage when it comes to improvising because you innately know how to not only react but repurpose, recycle and reinvent in order to handle the everyday challenges of life — a talent which can be effectively leveraged in business.
Turning life’s lemons into a lemonade stand –
No matter how extensively we plan for the future it will inevitably be full of surprises. As an entrepreneur you must be able and willing to roll with the punches, so to speak, by finding ways to adapt. With or without children, women are hardwired with a survival instinct that I like to refer to as the inner MacGyver. It equips you to handle the unexpected with grace and ingenuity.
The simple secret to harnessing this power lies in your perspective of the challenge. If you view it as an obstacle, you will not easily find your way around it. If you see it as an unanticipated opportunity, you essentially allow your ingenuity to take the lead and turn, what others might see as a bunch of lemons, into a lemonade stand. By maintaining an open mind and summoning your inner MacGyver you will find ways to leverage life’s surprises into successes.
© 2010 Reece International LLC/Dr. Shannon Reece. All rights reserved.
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Dr. Shannon Reece – The One Trusted Woman in a Man’s Business World
Starting your own business can be tough, but having the right tools makes all the difference. Dr. Reece provides the strategies and tactics women need to get their businesses from zero to launch and achieve real results. For more information visit www.DrShannonReece.com.
Strategies and Tactics for Women by Dr. Shannon Reece 
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[…] way too seriously sometimes. But the inner child keeps things in perspective, and has a knack for out-of-the-box thinking when we get into a jam. Remember how there was little you couldn’t solve as a kid with some […]
[…] way too seriously sometimes. But the inner child keeps things in perspective, and has a knack for out-of-the-box thinking when we get into a jam. Remember how there was little you couldn’t solve as a kid with some […]