• Columnists

Laura Berger, Executive Coach, The Berdéo Group

COLUMN = EXECUTIVE COACHING

An executive advisor and founder of The Berdéo Group, Laura Berger has 15 years’ experience as a consultant advising leadership in the areas of global operations management and strategy, project and change management, solution development, and implementation. She is a confidant of CEOs and senior executives who consistently realize their potential as leaders to see their companies flourish.

Having worked with many Fortune 500 companies, her clients include leaders at JPMorgan Chase, State Farm Insurance, United Airlines, General Motors, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, McDonalds Corporation, American Hospital Association, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Starcom MediaVest, and Walt Disney World. She takes great pride in assisting captains of business to bring value and creativity to their organizations.

Laura is generous in spirit when sharing what and whom she knows. She helps clients to achieve clarity and weigh alternatives, while they see and own obstacles and opportunities from the outside looking inward. Her ease and zeal for building lasting relationships, acquaintances, and productive introductions between people is her personal trademark. She has stretched her own spirit and will to combine her passions with her professional pursuits, and she shows others how to live true to their core.

Laura exemplifies this commitment to the life path in a book she is co-writing with her husband, Glen Tibaldeo, to be released in the near future. The book chronicles the humorous side of the successes and challenges they experienced living in the remote jungles of Costa Rica.

For more information, visit www.berdeogroup.com.

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

The journey is the reward.”

– Greg Norman

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

‎That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

– John F. Kennedy

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”

– Alfred Adler

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

Entrepreneurs willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”

– Victor Kiam

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison