Healthy advice for healthy business
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
Jennifer Melnick Carota, director of The Counseling House in Belle Vernon, speaks about Healthy Minds, Healthy Businesses, covering mental tips and workflows to ensure that leaders maintained a mental edge and emotional health while they deal with competing interests in their work.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
Jennifer Melnick Carota, director of The Counseling House in Belle Vernon, addresses the Greater Rostraver Chamber on Tuesday morning.
Jennifer Melnick Carota takes comments from the Greater Rostraver Chamber on habits members use to keep themselves in productive mindsets.
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
“We have to learn to step back, take a breath and be mindful of the moment.”
That was the advice from Jennifer Carota, owner and director of The Counseling House in North Belle Vernon, as she addressed a group of business leaders Tuesday during a breakfast lecture provided by the Greater Rostraver Chamber at The Willow Room in Rostraver Township.
Carota’s presentation, “Healthy Minds Healthy Business,” addressed aspects of a healthy emotional well being that are necessary to managing a successful business.
Carota showed a wheel of components that people deal with daily, including family, friends, health, spirituality, finance, community, physical environment, fun/recreation, spouse/partner and career.
Carota said it is important to chose and pick our daily battles.
“You have to learn how to take care of yourself. That’s the only thing you can control,” Carota said.
Carota said self-care involves a balance of mind, body and soul.
“If one of them is out of whack, they’re all out of whack,” Carota said. “How you wake up and feel is what you take to work.
“What we’re feeling on the inside is what we project when we walk into a room.”
Carota said we must put ourselves on the top of our to-do list, asking “When did we lose that necessity to play?”
“Think of self-care as mandatory,” Carota said. “You can’t work on an empty cup. If you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not the best version of yourself.”
Carota invited those gathered to open and review a self-care plan that was contained in a folder on the tables.
“If you don’t fill up your cup, someone else will,” Carota said. “You’ve got to learn how to manage self doubt.”
Carota said the easiest self care is breathing. She encouraged those gathered to slow their breathing in a four-second pace to attain a level of calm.
She said it is important to “challenge negative thoughts and negative people.” Carota also said it is important to learn coping skills and healthy boundaries at work.
“I’m hoping I’m giving you seeds of thought to seeds that we’re all works in progress,” Carota said.
Carota said it is important to surround yourself with people who grow with you, noting, “sometimes, if (some) people grow away from you, that’s okay.”
“Surround yourself with people who get you,” Carota said. “Life is too short to go for the low fruit. Be with people you like not people you want to be liked by.”
Carota said a person’s self-care plan will evolve over their life.
“You can take the positive and challenge the negatives until the cow comes home,” Carota said. “But if you do not believe what you’re telling yourself, you will never get anywhere.”