This week I want to share something I learned from Bob.
Bob is a leader who loves to share his wisdom and experience with his team and luckily for us, with me too.
Many years ago, Bob trained for the ironman competitions. His mentor at the time told him that if he missed a training session not to worry about it.
“It’s counter productive to try and catch it up, so the best thing is to move on to the next days training and do that well”, he said.
Bob adapted his training to his work.
He mentors his team and reminds them, that if they get behind in their schedule for any reason, not to go back to the unfinished task with a negative or tired mindset, but to move to the next task with a fresh mindset and energy.
If there is time, you can go back and catch up the task or continue tomorrow.
Unexpected things always happen at work and at home so whilst it’s good to have structure and a plan for your day, if you find yourself off course, keep going.
Do the next task.
Get your mind and energy back on the job.
It’s the quickest way to work effectively and efficiently.
When we sat down to eat, one of the guests looked at my plate quizzically and then turned to me and said, “You’re eating eggs. I didn’t think you ate eggs”.
“I made a decision”, I replied.
“You made a decision?” he asked.
“That’s right. I decided I wanted to eat eggs again, so I decided I would.”
For those of you who are not aware, for about 15 years I’ve had an intolerance to eggs if they were not cooked with flour. I became nauseous if I ate quiche, scrambled or other breakfast eggs or mayonnaise.
Whilst I’m not rushing out to eat mayonnaise, once I decided I was going to eat eggs again, I started introducing small amounts of scrambled egg until I could eat a regular breakfast meal.
I was testing myself with the quiche and I am happy to say, I didn’t get sick.
Enough about my digestion and eating preferences.
What has this got to do with you?
Well, you too can make a decision.
You can decide to be happy. (I had that conversation with a party guest last weekend who told me she just wanted to be happy.)
You can decide to have a good relationship.
You can decide to have children.
You can decide to change jobs or careers.
There’s a great book by Raymond Charles Barker called “The Power of Decision”.
I urge you to get it and either read it or listen to it or both.
It will help you understand and apply the power of decision.
And one more example from a client who decided to reduce his weight.
“Shirley, I’ve found that when I start thinking about reducing my weight, even before I have taken action, just by the mere decision and thought I can lose 4 kilos.”
Do you think being a leader is innate or a learned skill?
I had an interesting discussion recently with a new client on this very topic.
He confidently told me that being a leader is innate. You are born with it.
I could feel my eyebrows lift.
He expanded on his reasons why this was so.
During his career, he had often been promoted to leadership and management roles.
He had had no formal training and had performed well.
“Well, I think we’re going to disagree on this”, I said.
“I teach leadership skills.”
“Oh”, he replied.
“If you think about what you told me about how you were promoted, much of it was because you solved problems. You didn’t wait to be asked. You just got in and did it.”
He agreed.
Leaders are problem solvers.
And I agree, some people do this naturally, but that doesn’t mean that people can’t learn to become leaders or improve their leadership skills.
It comes back to The 4 Stages of Learning. We don’t know what we don’t know (Consciously Incompetent).
If you’ve never had the opportunity to solve problems or you didn’t know that that was one of the criteria for leadership, how could you demonstrate leadership skills?
Once you do become of aware of it, you can now start solving problems.
No-one is fighting you for the leadership role.
We all want leaders.
We want people to take charge; to make us feel safe; to take responsibility; to hold us accountable.
In our Leadership experiences, we have a particular activity that demonstrates this very well. During this activity the group of individuals become a team.
Someone steps up as leader and often it’s the person who doesn’t see themselves as a natural leader. It’s the person who has little confidence in their ability to lead.
As we debrief the activity, they are genuinely surprised (and a bit proud) of what they achieved. This one activity helps them transform their identity to accept that they are indeed, a leader.
Leaders behave differently to followers.
Leaders can learn communication skills. How to say things so that they land well for the listener.
Leaders can learn to understand their people better.
Would you consider yourself to be a leader?
Are you a problem solver?
If you’d like to know more, check out some of the skills that are included in our Leadership Fundamentals experience. Conduct a little audit for yourself. Click here to find out.
If you celebrate Easter, I wish you a very happy Easter. If not, happy holidays.
P.P.S. Our next LIVE online Leadership Fundamentals experience starts Tuesday 14th May, 2024.Click here for more information. Early Bird promotion where you pay for Silver and receive Gold finishes on Sunday 14th April, 2024 so be quick.
For me, I think you know what you’re about to say won’t be well received, so you qualify it first.
It’s like looking for approval for being the bearer of bad news or feedback.
Here’s the thing about using the word “but”.
When you join sentences with “but”, you negate the first sentence.
“I really like your new hairstyle but I prefer you blonde.”
“I think you did a good job but you missed this section of the garden.”
If you want to join sentences, use the word “and”.
“I really like your new hairstyle and I prefer you blonde.”
“I think you did a good job and you missed this section of the garden.”
If we don’t use the word “and”, the first sentence is ignored, so you may as well not say it.
Using “but” can also be a habit. I understand that.
I am constantly correcting myself.
If I hear myself say “but”, and I am aware of it, I immediately correct myself by saying “and”.
How about you?
My encouragement this week is to stop and think about what you are about to say, before you say it.
Think of the consequences.
Hear it from the receiver’s point of view before you speak.
“I’m hopeful that you’ve understood the message this week and I would love it if you practised.”
Watch out for the “but”.
Don’t throw yourself or anyone else under the bus.
And if you happen to be on the receiving end of the “but”, politely ask the speaker to clarify the message. Is the first sentence in addition to, or instead of, what follows?
I’m always looking to grow and develop and of course share what I learn with you.
This week I learned two things which I think will benefit you.
The first is a concept called “Power Pocket Rehearsals” by Lisa Pezik.
Lisa attended “World’s Greatest Speaker” training with Brendan Burchard, Bo Eeson and Roger Love.
She enrolled with all three for their coaching programs.
Bo encouraged the group and asked, “What if you could achieve your 10 year goal in one year?”
Lisa didn’t really think this was possible, however she did the work and created her own vision board, by sketching it and then set about sharing her goal and working towards it.
Lisa wanted to write a play and star in the play in live theatre as a one woman actor.
She achieved her goal in just less than one year. Amazing!
She shared her strategy – “Power Pocket Rehearsals”.
Instead of scrolling on Facebook for 20 minutes of a night, she rehearsed.
If she only had 7 minutes between meetings, she practised her voice warm up exercises.
Lisa found the pockets of time that previously she felt she wasted.
How often do we do that? Waste time on something that isn’t “essential” when we could be doing something towards manifesting our dreams.
The second thing is “Learn To Love It”.
In my coaching session I wanted to know how to get myself to take the action I know I need to take.
Mentor, Cham Tang replied, “Learn To Love It”.
I was puzzled.
He explained, we find the time to do the things we love, so learn to love the things you need to do and yet don’t do that are good for you.
When Cham was younger he enrolled in acting classes. He and another student had to practise their roles. The other student enthusiastically said, “Oh, I just love practising. I’ve been away from acting for a while and I just love it.”
At the time Cham didn’t love the practise and yet he continued to the point where he did start to like it and eventually love it.
What’s something you are putting off that is good for you or will take you to where you want to go and yet you can’t get yourself to do the work?
Can you find some power pocket rehearsal times or practise enough until you learn to love it?
In fact, the only reason I got to hear Lisa’s presentation was because we turned off the nightly television shows and decided to watch something that was good for us.
