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Last Thursday I had the opportunity to attend the 2016 Administrative Professionals Conference at WinMock in Bermuda Run, NC. WinMock is a beautiful old barn that has been renovated to hold conferences, weddings, etc. Our audience was made up of Administrative Professionals from WFU, WF-Health Sciences, Novant, UNC School of the Arts and Forsyth Technical Community College. We had 181 attendees.

I have been on the Administrative Professionals Committee, which plans the conference, for 13 years. This year, each attendee at the conference was able to win a door prize!

We had 3 awesome speakers!

Speaker 1 was Nicole Greer

Topic: S.H.I.N.E. Live an Illuminated Life

A VIBRANT LIFE is pulsating with energy and purpose. SHINE is a master plan for goal setting through harnessing strategies, systems, and smarts. This program aims to release your talent like a light to illuminate the dark places where your brilliance is desperately needed in your organization. You will experience a fresh approach to Self-Assessment, take a hard look at your Habits, explore what it means to be in Integrity, articulate Next Right Steps, and take an Energy audit. This proven methodology for coaching creates movement…significant movement.

You lead at work, at home and in the community. You need a structure to support your life as you support your organization’s future. Integrated with stories Nicole provides proven, time-tested, and smart actionable strategies. Nicole speaks directly to the audience in a group-coaching format utilizing tools like the ‘Art of Dialogue’, a technique you can tuck away in your own tool kit.

  • Understand “YOU 101.”
  • Learn about your elemental communication style, see your strengths and challenges, and name them.
  • Get a grip on your unconscious tendencies or habits.
  • Take a deep dice into what it means to be a man or woman of integrity, whole and contributing in a powerful way.
  • Formulate next right steps.
  • Look at energy in a four-fold model that if taken seriously can change everything about your life, your organization, and your future.
  • SHINE is for professionals who know they can do more but feel limited by the organizations challenges with regard to time, money and energy. If you have a dream to contribute your talents, gifts and life to your family, your organization and the greater community in a powerful way, you will be inspired to do more with the untapped potential that lies dormant within. SHINE identifies the obstacles that hold you back and gives you the strategies, systems and smarts to overcome those obstacles.

Speaker 2 was Shayla Herndon-Edmunds

Topic: Stop Telling Me to Breathe!

Have you ever had some severely happy or ironically anxious person tell you “just breathe?” Who has time for that, right?!!! Today, we are bombarded with messages about balance and wellbeing. From gurus and coaches to products and programs, there is no shortage of people telling us how important these things “should” be to us. Some believe that balance and wellbeing are critical to our emotional, spiritual, and physical health, while others believe they don’t exist.

As incredibly busy working professionals who wear multiple hats, while completing multiple tasks, for multiple people, using multiple tools and devices, the idea of focusing our own wellbeing often feels like “another thing to do.” And if you’re like many of us, the very thought of self-care can be overwhelming. While balance and wellbeing may be important, they can only be achieved when we make them for us and about us by recognizing that our needs are specific to us.

Together we will:

  • assess our own needs and priorities,
  • evaluate how well we meet them,
  • created a personal definition of balance and wellbeing; and
  • receive tools for living a more balanced and mindful existence.

We all deserve to live the life we deserve and desire. In reality, most of us have all the tools that we need in order to do so but we use them to help others and very rarely, ourselves. As an administrative professional, I’ve been Guilty of helping others to live their best life while barely attending to my own. And now as a coach, entrepreneur, and a mentor, I’ve committed to helping others discover and define their own sense of balance, which in my case began with two words “me too.”

Speaker 3 was Laura Hamilton

Topic: Time Wasters: They Steal our Lives

Ever finished a day at work and wondered where the time went? Ever tried to finish up “one more thing” and actually completed nothing? Ever wanted to spend a quiet night at home but your youngest child remembers a science project is due tomorrow? Ever noticed you complete things faster the closer to a deadline? Ever wished you could gain control of your world? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need help eliminating the Time Wasters in your Life! Time Wasters steal any extra bits of time to add more chaos in your day. Topics include:

  1. Eliminating self-distractions and interruptions
  2. Managing text messages and emails
  3. Cleaning up the clutter
  4. Developing a “no” script
  5. Utilizing a list of things to do
  6. Realizing technology does not manage time
  7. Discovering “reflective” time
  8. Developing good time management habits