Empathy Stretch

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Last Sales Talk Tuesday, I shared with the team the beautiful word Sonder, which I first heard about from my mentor Seth Godin. Connecting with people is easier when we understand Sonder.

This definition by the dictionary of obscure sorrows is my favorite:
Sonder
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

It perfectly aligns with a beautiful compassion exercise I learned from the amazing teacher Pema Chodron called Just like Me which the spiritual teacher Ram Dass explains below so eloquently:

  • This person has a body and a mind, just like me.
  • This person has feelings, emotions, and thoughts, just like me.
  • This person has experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering, just like me.
  • This person has at some time been sad, disappointed, angry, or hurt, just like me.
  • This person has felt unworthy or inadequate, just like me.
  • This person worries and is frightened sometimes, just like me.
  • This person will die, just like me.
  • This person has longed for friendship, just like me.
  • This person is learning about life, just like me.
  • This person wants to be caring and kind to others, just like me.
  • This person wants to be content with what life has given them, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be free from pain and suffering, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be safe and healthy, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be happy, just like me.
  • This person wishes to be loved, just like me.

Now, allow wishes for well-being to arise:

  • I wish this person to have the strength, resources, and social support they need to navigate the difficulties in life with ease.
  • I wish this person to be free from pain and suffering.
  • I wish this person to be peaceful and happy.
  • I wish this person to be loved . . . because this person is a fellow human being, just like me.

So powerful.

Empathy Stretch

Digital Wish List

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This could be a wish list or simply a list of digital nagging tasks that I’m dumping here, maybe to say you are not alone thinking about them, or to get my affairs in order in power hour(s) as Gretchen Rubin says.

  1. Spend time reading and enjoying all my email newsletters with no guilt
  2. Unsubscribe from content I don’t read or enjoy or open.
  3. Clean up my following lists on Instagram and Twitter
  4. Upload all my mobile photos and fix that recent memory issue in my phone.
  5. Go through all items in my downloads folder and order them properly
  6. Go through documents in my OneDrive and clear it up.
  7. Read all my Kindle books and listen to all my audible books, or simply make peace with the idea that I will never read some of these books after all, as long as I am always interested in new books.
  8. GTD old tasks on my favorite to-do app Any.do, delete irrelevant tasks, and really decide the next action for each task that I decide to keep.

I found that most of these tasks can’t be done on phone. Unless apps are properly locked, we can get easily distracted and forget the original task we started. Moreover, no matter the phone model, phone screens are too small for focus. That’s why we rarely send important emails on phones.

For these tasks to happen, I need to dedicate some time for them. Maybe none of them will directly move my goals forward, I even could be using them as means of productive procrastination on my most meaningful goals.

On the other hand, getting through them would enhance my feeling of clarity, I will have easier and more searchable digital life, in addition to making sure that the important is distinctly saved from memory fading or trash.

Digital Wish List

What do you do in low energy days?

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I did not sleep well because I stayed up too late having super quality time with my mastermind group.
I took 2 walks to boost my energy and had lots of coffee today, which made me feel more alert, but still not focused enough for the analytical functions of my job. Therefore, I switched to my administrative tasks, the low-energy brain tasks, like following up on emails, data entry work, some inquiry calls I have been postponing and so on. Those tasks needed to be done by me, and today was the ideal day to cross them off.

We don’t lose the day because of our energy level, we simply re-design it, so we would still make meaningful progress.

What do you do in low energy days?

Sales Talk Tuesdays

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Maybe I did not mention this before, but I work as an assistant sales manager to enhance sales team performance.

Because I love teaching so much, I started an initiative called “Sales Talk Tuesdays” in late 2019 where I gathered new hires with seasoned sales employees to openly talk about their experience now that they are in the field to support them and motivate them.

I used to think and come up with a topic every week. It was not easy. I did not use slides. However, what helped was using some tips from the book The Art of Gathering which taught me to prime the attendees with a cool invitation and set rules for the meeting and end it sweetly. So I always got some kind of desert like donuts or marshmallows (When I talked about the marshmallow test) for example. Unfortunately, we paused these sessions since 2020 quarantine, and I did not attempt to do them online.

Now that we are all back to work, I kicked off this initiative again with a more structured format that extends 5 weeks. I have created a unique material for each week. This way I can re-use it with each new group while also getting the chance to refine it. The material is not perfect, but it is evolving. I still need to create a feedback form where attendees can let me know what topics they wish I cover more of during these sessions.

I am happy about this initiative, it lets me show up at my best and I created it to make my job more meaningful, what can you do to make your job more meaningful?

Sales Talk Tuesdays

Money Beliefs Session Recap

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I just hosted a Live Instagram session today with a super financial coach to talk about money beliefs and how they define our relationship to money. It was such an energizing conversation.

I started the Live by saying ‘I love money so much’ and asking the audience how does that statement make them feel. It’s really funny that if we replaced money with Pizza, as Jen Senciro said in her awesome money beliefs shaker of a book “You Are a Badass at Making Money”, we wouldn’t feel a thing about the statement, but saying that we love money triggers many reactions, most of which are judgmental.

We also talked about the need to challenge our limiting money beliefs using the 3-legged chair method. We need to find three supporting pieces of evidence to have a limiting belief hold. Most times we wouldn’t be able to.


We defined the difference between rich and wealthy. Wealthy is what we want to be where we don’t make money in exchange for our time, but instead have passive sources of income supporting us.

Throughout the Live, we kept repeating our current favorite money mantra

“I love money and money loves me”.

Try it. It’s powerful.

Watch the Live session here (Arabic).

Money Beliefs Session Recap

The magic of accountability

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I recently committed to #tweet100 initiative by Jay Clause which entails posting daily on Twitter for 100 days. This challenge is the external accountability I needed to re-commit to show up and write daily here on my blog, afterward I share my posts in tweets. 10 Days in and proud.

I have not been reading parenting books like I used to, so my friends and I created a mini book club and chose one to read this month, which we plan to discuss in 2 Zoom sessions. This made reading parenting books more exciting for me.

I have been spending more money than I should on Kindle books, therefore I created a rule where I had to send my friend before any purchase, providing her with the name of the book and its price. This is a friction point that made the spending habit more difficult for me.


That’s what you need to do too to move your goals forward, join a tribe that has the same purpose as yours, or even better, lead the way and create one.

The magic of accountability

What does an intentional day look like?

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A powerful, productive day filled with intentional action starts the night before. When you sleep with the intention of waking up early to take care of your physical, mental and spiritual life before starting your day’s work.

First thing in the day, you put your priorities on your schedule by dividing your time into blocks of focus, administrative work, communication and breaks and try your best to commit to them. When you get interrupted by an unplanned meeting or new urgent task, you check your schedule and see what you can shift to accommodate this new task. Such a day doesn’t have room for questions like “what should I do next?” Next is already planned. It does not allow for going into a rabbit hole of open tabs and app notifications.

While working, your phone is silent and only important calls can get through. You listen to great focus-inducing music, without lyrics, obviously, to avoid triggering distracting thoughts and emotions.

If you feel you are avoiding a boring but must-do task that does not need your brain power but just some time to finish, you make it more fun by playing upbeat music or great podcasts to accompany you.

You take breaks. You stretch your legs. You have lunch with your colleagues and talk about nonwork stuff, you go for a short walk and come back refreshed. You end the work day by following a ritual that makes sure you close all open loops, marking what’s next for each project you worked on exactly to get you started the next day easily.

I believe you can reset your day whenever you choose to. I always feel that a quick call with a friend and a short walk could work like a restart button for my day, especially when I get stuck in a fire-fighting mode or in unproductive thoughts.

Keeping your planned schedule in front of you can also help guard your time and get it back on track. You can begin your day anew by saying no to interruptions or new requests when possible, or by delaying your response until you are done with your most important work.

As someone smart said, other people’s lack of planning does not have to be your emergency.

What does an intentional day look like?

The Perfect Habits Question

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Peter Shepherd reminded me of a question I learned in Atomic Habits:

“Is what you are doing today getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow?”

The answer is an astounding YES when I think about some habits I have:

-Exercising today: Health & Vibrancy tomorrow.
-Meditation today: Mindfulness tomorrow.
-Journaling today: Clarity tomorrow.
-Creating (videos, podcast, blog posts) today- Legacy tomorrow.
-Story time with kids today: Memories and love of reading for the kids tomorrow.
-Skincare today: glowing skin tomorrow.
-Checking on family today: Closer bonds tomorrow.

On the other hand, there are habits I have that will affect me negatively on the long term and will not get me closer to where I want to be tomorrow, so I need to work on them. For example:

-Not saving money today: no peace of mind tomorrow

Such a good question.

The Perfect Habits Question

A Self-Compassion Example

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It was a Saturday, I woke up feeling already overwhelmed by the back to back errands that all needed to get done that day. I felt I did not want to wake up. I felt that I wanted to hide under the bedsheets. I felt resistance, and even regret, due to committing to all this in one day because of a deadline the next day.

Then, I started to talk to myself gently. I put my hand on my heart and patted softly saying “It’s alright sweetheart, you can do this, it’s okay.” It really felt good. Just like we calm our children when they are having a hard time coping, we still have this inner child that stomps her feet whenever she feels too tired or not in the mood to go on. I observed my resistance and nurtured myself back to adulthood that morning.

I did not realize I even practiced self-compassion just like I learned in the book Radical Compassion until later in the day, this book got to me and I put it into action when the need arose. It is such a good book, and self-compassion never felt more clear to me than when I read this book. Give it a try.

A Self-Compassion Example

How do you lead the way?

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We lead the way by embodying and sharing a better way to work where we can get what matters done over what’s latest or loudest. This can happen when we recognize our human tendencies of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, where pain is the discomfort we feel when we share our work like publishing this post or doing that presentation or being afraid to start or finish, or even feeling all our feelings, and pleasure is that Dopamine hit we get scrolling our social media feed away from the work we need to do.

We lead the way by living purposeful days, where we make tiny, consistent and meaningful progress in our wellbeing. We eat well and move and meditate and pray and get in touch with the most important people in our life and save money and make more money and keep learning.

We lead the way when we have an idea of how we want to be remembered and what impact we want to leave the world better for living in it.

We lead the way when we bring joy and lightheartedness wherever we go. And when we fall short, which we will do as humans, we stand up again.

We lead the way by believing in the power of starting over and making amends. We lead by giving second chances and setting boundaries to protect our mental health and energy. We lead by taking care of ourselves to be able to help others who need us to lean on. We lead by quitting the belief in sacrifice as a badge of honor and martyrdom in our role as mothers.

We also lead the way by being in service to others and shining a spotlight on their wins.

(Thank you Forwardlink for this prompt)

How do you lead the way?