Testimonials
Tisha Schmidt, MBA
I had the opportunity to work with Laura following a job elimination. Laura led me through a Strengths Finder tool , which produced an updated resume that highlights my strengths rather than a resume that lists job duties and tasks accomplished. Laura also facilitated personal goal setting. I had spent much of professional life working… Read more “Tisha Schmidt, MBA”
Terry Hollandsworth
Working with Laura in communication training improved my self awareness, communication skills, and the relationships with my customers. I highly recommend her services and value her guidance.
Kara Rogers
The word that exemplifies my work with Laura is “intentional”. So many things in my life are on auto pilot, or I am multi-tasking so much I start “flying by the seat of my pants”. While I can and do get things done in both of these modes, it isn’t the best or most efficient… Read more “Kara Rogers”
Angela Miller
Laura has been a mentor to several protégés in the Everwise program. Her insight and knowledge has been highly valued and her protégés have made measured progress toward their professional goals. Her commitment to development is evident and she is a delight to work with. Laura brings deep expertise in effective communication, personal brand and… Read more “Angela Miller”
Barry Pearson, Group Manager Administration & Quality at Toyota North America
Every successful company strives for the next big idea that gives them the advantage over their competition. Focusing on human development has clearly become an area thru which companies separate themselves from the competition, and at TMMWV, we are no different. Two years ago, we began looking for a more comprehensive approach to human development… Read more “Barry Pearson, Group Manager Administration & Quality at Toyota North America”
Ryan Deaderick
Laura has been a joy to work with. She can seamlessly move between the roles of teacher, mentor, and coach to provide useful insight and challenging questions. I have worked with Laura for over a year and a half, and have grown tremendously as a leader and individual during that time. She has helped me… Read more “Ryan Deaderick”
Peter Hein
Laura provides a service that I feel more people should look into as it is very valuable. It is not just another rah-rah team training seminar, but a well thought out one-on-one program. We started with goals (work and changes in careers) but also how to achieve them which lead into discussions of leadership… Read more “Peter Hein”
Margaret Mary Layne
“Laura Prisc was an invaluable asset in helping the Museum solve a troubling personnel issue between two very valuable, professional employees. These two particular members of our staff had to work together on a regular basis and it just was not running smoothly. The sessions that Laura set up and the assignments given to each… Read more “Margaret Mary Layne”
Patrick W. Klesel, MBA
Laura is a great listener who positively motivates me to achieve my goals through a proven coaching strategy.
David Houser, West Virginia Market Manager PrimeLending, A Plains Capital Company
“When you meet Laura, it becomes very clear very quickly that she’s on a mission to wake people up to become their best selves, to become intentional leaders, and to live their lives on purpose! And she’s well-equipped to do it, continually investing in her own growth to ensure she’s ahead of the curve with… Read more “David Houser, West Virginia Market Manager PrimeLending, A Plains Capital Company”
Amy Dennis
I hired Laura to help me explore ways to broaden my career path. It was a pleasure working with Laura. I learned a lot about myself. I also learned to think more deeply about what I want for myself and why. Laura is a great motivator and pushes you to be your best.
Tim O’Neal, Manufacturing Leader
I am Tim O’Neal, a manufacturing leader at the Dow Chemical Company in West Virginia Operations. My leadership team played the Leadership Game. From the start, it was clear that this is no game. To my team and I, it was an experience. The principles and laws from John Maxwell are spread throughout the discussions… Read more “Tim O’Neal, Manufacturing Leader”
David Rosier, General Manager Toyota North America Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia
“We engaged Laura because we recognized most of the team we considered our core leaders were not leading at all. In fact, they were so caught up in the details of day-to-day management activities, they weren’t growing themselves or developing their direct reports. We need leaders at every level of the organization if we are… Read more “David Rosier, General Manager Toyota North America Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia”
Melanie Gorman, SVP YourTango.com
It was a joy to spend a weekend with Laura. I reached out to work with her after coming to a realization that the feedback from my supervisor, team, and clients were riddled with my own interpretation. I wanted to know definitely what I’m good at; what my strengths are and where I can be… Read more “Melanie Gorman, SVP YourTango.com”
James Owrey
It was a pleasure to participate in Laura’s Maxwell Mastermind Group during Fall 2012. She has a great acumen for teaching and demonstrating principles of leadership, particularly from the works of John Maxwell. Her caring nature combines perfectly with her commitment to accountability. This is an “actions-to-outcomes” approach that keeps participants both engaged and motivated.… Read more “James Owrey”
Maureen McIntosh, LCT. M.Ed.CCC ACC
I have been working with Laura weekly for the last five weeks. She is personable, reliable, full of integrity and has managed to help me stay focused and on task. She is excellent at holding me accountable, a benefit of working with a great coach. I easily recommend Laura as a great coach that will… Read more “Maureen McIntosh, LCT. M.Ed.CCC ACC”
Betsy Eberg, CEP
I loved working with Laura! I learned so much about myself during the 6 months I mentored with her. Laura taught me how to be more self aware, and this has shed light into many areas of my life, both personal and professional. I am more intentional in my behavior. I now recognize that intent… Read more “Betsy Eberg, CEP”
Kyle Mork
Laura has been a fantastic asset for our company and for me personally for well over a year. She has provided both coaching and consulting services, as well as handled group sessions with our managers. She has a unique ability to discern the core issue and help you work through possible solutions. She has become… Read more “Kyle Mork”
James Wells, IPMA-SCP, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Laura presented an excellent program, “Building Healthy, Smart Teams,” during our local SHRM Chapter’s September 2012 meeting. She shared useful information and practical insight into the key characteristics healthy teams possess and demonstrate, which we can apply in our workplaces, volunteer organizations, etc. Laura added value to our Chapter’s meeting and we would welcome her… Read more “James Wells, IPMA-SCP, SPHR, SHRM-SCP”
Wes Harvey
When looking for a coach to bring out your inner potential and guide you on a path of self-discovery, one word comes to mind when choosing the right person. Passion! Laura has a passion to become the best version of herself that she can be and in the process is looking to do the same… Read more “Wes Harvey”
Intentional Leadership — D3, W3, M6 — Perseverance
Building LeadersToday is a good day to learn more about others who have persevered. Spend some time online searching for stories of people who made it through adversity.
Think of a traumatic experience: The Great Depression, the Holocaust, or something you witnessed personally. Read or think about the accounts of hardships and what was learned from them.
What did you learn from reading these accounts?
How can you apply these principles to what you are facing today?
Last year, I read the Little House on the Prairie series of books with my son. There are some stories of perseverance! I can’t recall how many times the Ingalls family lost pretty much everything they had worked for (homes, crops, etc…), including very nearly losing their lives on several occasions, mostly due to weather and other natural events. But they continued to get up every day and work to build their home, sow and raise crops and animals, trying to build a good life.
I believe that when we are working toward the right and true things, toward our dreams, there is no other choice but to persevere.
What do you think?
Intentional Leadership — D2, W3, M6 — Perseverance
Building LeadersPerseverance can make or break people. When you persevere, you learn a lot about yourself and others. Spend some time now writing a few lessons you’ve learned about perseverance in each area of your life:
Lessons from family members
Lessons from education
Lessons from friends
Lessons from professional life
What two or three principles can you create to remind you of the lessons you have learned from perseverance?
I’ll share one of my stories with you.
I always knew education would be my ticket to a better future. So, I worked hard through high school. I earned a small scholarship through the Jr. Miss program (it was a scholarship program, pretty prevalent in high school, with many programs throughout the US), and qualified for some financial aid for college. I went to school my first year, and was told by the financial aid office at my university that I no longer qualified for aid because my parents earned too much money.
Regardless of what the Financial Aid office thought, my parents were not in a position to help me with school, and I was determined to finish my degree. So, I found a job babysitting a couple of kids for a woman who worked at my university, for about nine months, until I had been independent of my parents long enough to apply for FA on my own merits.
After missing nearly all of what should have been my second year of college, I was able to get some student loans and start classes, again. Because my loans weren’t enough to pay for everything thing, I worked. In fact, I worked three different jobs (cleaning the administration building at my school — part time thru the school year and full time over the summer, cleaning the home of one of the professors, and taking care of the live plants in one of the school buildings) while taking a full load of classes. While the jobs I held changed over the next three years, I worked my way through school. I know I was blessed to have access to financial aid, grants, and loans to earn my Bachelor’s degree.
While having a college education doesn’t guarantee anyone a good job or a successful career, it has certainly opened a lot of doors for me. In fact, in many cases, it was the required minimum to even be considered for some positions. And, after I had been working in my field for several years, I started missing new job opportunities because the level of positions I was becoming qualified for stated “Master’s degree preferred.” Not required, just preferred. Nonetheless, I missed a number of job offers, because the positions were offered to someone with a Master’s degree. So, I realized, if I wanted to move up, I would need to go back to school and earn my Master’s degree.
This wasn’t a daunting task for me, as I love learning. In fact, if I could be in a learning environment all the time, I would be there in a heartbeat! So, I did go back to school. This time, the money wasn’t the biggest challenge; I was working a full-time job and attended school several nights a week, plus some weekend workshops. It wasn’t always easy and it wasn’t always fun…but I persevered and emerged from that time in my life victorious!
I am proud to list myself as Laura Prisc, MSC (Master of Science in Communication).
Try it…you’ll like how you feel about yourself when you finish what you set out to do, and especially if you had to persevere through difficult times.
Intentional Leadership — D1, W3, M6 — Perseverance
Building LeadersDo you remember the days before photocopiers were everywhere? I do…I remember in Junior High School, being a teacher’s aid for the elementary school across the street. The teacher asked me to make copies of something she was planning to share with her students. I had to use what was called the “mimeo” machine (short for mimeograph, if I recall correctly). The original was a carbon copy with tracing-paper thin pages, and there had to be fluid in the machine, and you had to line the page up straight and catch the top in this “gripper” thing…ooof! It was a difficult and annoying exercise, to say the least!
Well, others had just as difficult a time, if not more so, duplicating documents. Chester Carlson worked in a patent office as a young man. He routinely experienced the costly and time-consuming process of obtaining copies. Motivated by his frustrations, he set out to discover an alternate way to make copies.
Through intense research and experimentation, he patented an inventive way to make copies. His patent was ingenious, but marketing it proved to be quite difficult. After all, he was a newlywed, earning a modest salary, studying law, and living with his in-laws (just a few challenges and constraints, wouldn’t you say?!).
While he could see the commercial applications for his invention, he had trouble selling the merits. IBM, RCA, and Kodak all turned him down. Even fellow scientists at the National Inventors Council dismissed his ideas as impractical. As anyone would have been, he grew more and more discouraged and nearly gave up on his interest in photocopying several times, but just couldn’t quite get it out of his system.
Eventually, Carlson had an experience similar to that of Theodor Geisel in trying to get his first children’s book published; Carlson was rejected by about twenty organizations before he happened upon Haloid, a tiny company in Rochester, New York. Haloid invested research funding to develop Carlson’s patent and over time created the first copying machines. Haloid would turn the business world upside down with the new machines, essentially vindicating Carlson, making him a multi-millionaire 21 years after he secured his patent. You may not recognize the name Haloid, but surely you are familiar with Chester Carlson’s company, Xerox!
When leading, others may not initially see your vision as clearly as you, and some never will. Like Chester Carlson, and millions of others before and after him, you may spin your wheels for some time…weeks, months, even years, before your vision gains traction. To find success, you must find and display a bulldog-like tenacity to stick with what you believe in.
Today, journal about someone who has inspired you to persevere through unfavorable conditions. What have you learned from this person?
How can you use those lessons to help you persevere?