by Helen Iwata | Jul 3, 2023 | All, Communication Skills, Conference Calls, Effective Facilitation, Expert Interviews, Personal Growth, Presentation Skills, Productive Meetings
Have you ever been in a meeting where your colleague didn’t seem to be paying attention or contributing fully? You might feel frustrated. But you probably don’t know what’s going on in that person’s life that could be distracting them. One day, I joined a 1:1 coaching...
by Helen Iwata | Jun 20, 2023 | All, Announcements, Communication Skills, Conference Calls, Effective Facilitation, Expert Interviews, Personal Growth, Presentation Skills, Productive Meetings
“My son has been sick this week, and he ended up watching YouTube for kids all day since he wants to be in my room where I work. I felt bad.” This is a classic example of mum guilt. In many cases, “Mum guilt” (or “Mom guilt” or “Mommy guilt”) is when you want to be a...
by Helen Iwata | Jun 13, 2023 | All, Announcements, Communication Skills, Conference Calls, Effective Facilitation, Expert Interviews, Personal Growth, Presentation Skills, Productive Meetings
I was amused when I read an article about how Japanese people were taking classes to learn how to smile after spending so long wearing masks during the pandemic. It makes sense though. Our facial expression has a huge impact on our communication to others as well as...
by Helen Iwata | Jun 6, 2023 | All, Communication Skills, Personal Growth
(Just for fun – the photo is with my friend, Sam, about 5 years ago on the stepping stones at a lovely village in Yorkshire where we used to go on family holidays as children.) The other day, Junko (not her real name) told me on a call that she’d recently been...
by Helen Iwata | Jun 5, 2023 | All, Communication Skills, Personal Growth
Oh, the difficulty of receiving! This photo is from 2014. I was speaking at a seminar organized by FEW (For Empowering Women) Japan and this was the panel discussion toward the end of the event. After this, there was a raffle. My name came up as a winner! In my mind,...
by Helen Iwata | May 9, 2023 | All, Communication Skills, Personal Growth
As we come out of Golden Week in Japan, I have a sort of “New Year” feeling. In March, many businesses went through the crazy busyness of the fiscal year end. In April, it was all about new hires and moving to new departments. And then the holidays. So now seems like...
