SELF LEADERSHIP

Oct

2022

Roadblocks to Momentum Part III

I was standing about to step off the edge into what I could not see. I would be staring at a wall of rock the entire time hoping I would not crash into the wall and break my legs or plummet to the ground uncontrollably and die. This experience of rappelling off a rock is like stepping into the unknown of building a business.

At the point of jumping for either experience we battle mental monsters. Two voices compete in our mind and more often than I want to admit the negative voice wins and blocks my momentum. This voice is the voice of limiting beliefs. This voice often pushes us toward what Carol Dweck calls a fixed mindset in her book Mindset which I talked more in depth about here. For now, allow me to suggest three ways we may limit our momentum.

Past Experiences

Up until that point I had never jumped off a rock into the unknown with someone at bottom I am trusting my life to. All my past experiences say that if I jump into the unknown I will get hurt. These same experiences impact how much we are willing to move forward.

For years I had a “secure” paycheck and to build a business required . . . well I didn’t know exactly. I knew it required a lot of work and would be exciting, but also terrifying because I still had to feed my family and pay bills. Not only at jumping point, but daily I choose to step into growth and the unknown even though I do not know what to expect. Instead of allowing past experiences to limit me, movement continues the momentum.

Results

Once I stepped off the ledge and fell into the unknown my heart was beating and then my feet hit the wall, flexed my knees, and pushed myself away. With each contact I grew more confident, and the momentum grew. This is no different in other area we are trying to gain momentum.

In other industries I had experienced success. These results encouraged my belief I could be successful in a new endeavor. Momentum is easy to maintain when we see results that are evident like on the mountain wall. The limiting beliefs creep in when we see results that could reinforce the thought we can’t do it. What do we do? Borrow belief from those ahead in the journey or get people in our life who can help us identify the lies and replace them with truth.

History

You may not be a person of faith or agree with this idea but stick with me for the sake of illustration. I’ve heard it said that when the devil reminds you of your past (failures), remind him of his future (destruction). We all fail and may think because of our past lack of experience, failures, or . . . that we can’t do what we are envisioning.

There is truth that we may have limitations we need to grow through or get people around us to help us when we are weak. Sometimes though, we are simply limiting ourselves by believing lies. One of my mentors introduced me to a great phrase. “Up until now” I haven’t or couldn’t . . . just because we haven’t done it YET doesn’t mean we will not eventually succeed.

What is limiting you? I know sometimes I need someone to come alongside me to help me get out of my own way. Maybe people on your team struggle with one or all of these. If I can help you and those you lead gain momentum through breaking through these barriers contact me so we can discover ways I can serve you. Lead well.

Apr

2022

How Do You Respond To Failure?

Recently I was facilitating a training where we were playing The Leadership Game Sales Edition. During our time people would come up to roll the die and pick a card. After reading the card to the group they had to answer a question.

One question highlighted the idea that fear plays a major factor in success. Multiple fears were highlighted, but I want to address the one that may trip many of us up. This fear can consciously or unconsciously trip us up to the point of paralysis. The fear of failure.

Where does it come from?

We all can agree that we fail. This is a part of life. What creates this fear? I will suggest a few factors that create this fear.

Our identity is wrapped up in not failing. We want to do things right and then if we fail we think WE ARE a failure.
The environment we perform in. Maybe we work in a culture that shames people when they fail instead of encouraging learning and growth.
As a recovering perfectionist myself I recognize my fear of failure can often be rooted in thinking that anything other than perfect is bad.

How do you respond?

In his book Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn, leadership expert John Maxwell provides four ways that we may respond to failure. I encourage you to look at these responses and ask yourself which one do you tend to naturally lean toward?

Blow up – get angry, blame, rationalize, compensate, or be resentful
Cover up – hide our mistakes and possibly make excuses
Back up – withdraw in hopes no one will discover our mistake
Give up – quit and never address the mistake

Maybe one of these jumped out at you. The next question is how can you best neutralize this unhealthy response? Let’s look at some ideas in the last section.

What can help you respond better?

Maybe you have young children, or you remember falling off your bike when you learned how to ride a back. When my kids were learning how to ride a bike eventually they would fall. Now I had a choice as a parent:

Run and make a big deal about their fall like it was the end of the world.

Encourage them that they are ok and need to get up.

We have that same choice every time we fail. Will we lay on the ground and pout and stay stuck or will be bounce up and grow? Bouncing is getting up and trying again quickly. At times bouncing is pausing to evaluate what went wrong, learn from it and try again. Sometimes bouncing is not making the same choice and going down a different path. If we hit a tree when riding our bike we will take a new path.

How do you need to shift your response to failure? Have you had a recent failure that has you stuck? Need help getting unstuck? Go here for a no cost thirty-minute thinking partner session to help you start getting unstuck. In the meantime when you fail, bounce up, learn and keep growing. Lead well.

Apr

2022

Winning the Mental Battle

We are a Marvel movie family and recently we watched the second movie in the Venom series. You may think I am crazy that I am writing something about this movie and tying it to leadership in some way. Stick with me for a minute.

For those of you not familiar with the movie the quick summary is that an amoeba alien has become symbiotically attached to the main character. During the movie Eddie constantly seems like he is talking to himself. In reality he has an ongoing conversation with Venom. After watching I thought about how each of us has a Venom inside our heads.

We all talk to ourselves, but how can we manage that conversation like Eddie had to manage his conversations with Venom?

Hear Venom

Let me reassure you. You are not crazy. We all talk to ourselves. At times we are too busy to hear the voice or we try to avoid it because it drives us crazy. The voice in our head may serve us well . . . or not, but we will get to that in a moment.

During this movie there is a scene where Venom tells Eddie to look in a jail cell right before he is about to leave. In that cell are clues to what is going on in the movie. This is when the voice serves us well. We get this hunch to go somewhere, have a conversation with someone, do something, or any of something else. We act even though it makes no sense and something good happens or something bad is prevented. Take time to listen to the voice, but then go to the next step.

Test Venom

In the first movie Eddie had no clue what was going on and didn’t know if this voice was trustworthy. Similarly, we need to test the thoughts coming to our mind. My favorite book talks about “taking every thought captive.” When you hear the thought pause enough to evaluate if this thought is true and will it serve you well.

Decide if you Should Agree with Venom

We have heard the thought and tested the thought and now we need to decide what to do with the thought. Here are a few options:

Ignore the thought because it does not serve us and replace it with a thought that does serve us well.
Think on the thought to determine if we should continue to think into and act on it later.
Act on the thought if it serves us or could potentially serve us without major negative impact.

We all have a voice in our head. Accept that as a reality and even give it a name so, when necessary, it can be confronted directly. Our thoughts do not have to control us. Consider what we dwell on and focus on what is true, right, and serves us well to help us reach our vision.

Where in this process do you get stuck? Need help breaking through these limiting beliefs? Contact me for a no cost to you thirty-minute coaching session to help you think into your self-leadership. Sometimes the voice gets so loud we need someone else to help us test and decide. You are fighting the same fight everyone is. Remember you choose what you focus on. Focus on what is true and lead well.

Jan

2022

Prioritize for Success

While working with organizations I have led leadership roundtables using John Maxwell’s book Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 as a basis for our conversation. Typically, on the first day after defining what it means to be a leader, we discuss priorities. This is always a beneficial and practical conversation that challenges everyone.

Entire books have been written on this topic by multiple authors and I will highlight a couple in here. Below are some simple steps you can apply so you can be even more focused in your leadership.

Assess Your Time

For years I was in an environment where bells and clock timers dictated my day so we were efficient. I don’t know if that environment or my natural wiring makes the tool I am about to share naturally easy for me. I learned about “the fifteen-minute miracle.” What you do is take a sheet that blocks the entire day in fifteen-minute intervals and track your time.

Write down everything you do on this document to see where your time is going. After you fill it out take a few minutes to ask yourself two questions:

Where are you spending your time?
How is this moving me toward my ultimate goal?

To answer the second question, take time to discern this next tip.

Decide What is Important

A couple tools exist to help with this. One that many people I work with find useful I first encountered through Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The urgent/important grid. I won’t discuss that here because I covered it in a previous blog. The second tool I found in Rory Vaden’s book Procrastinate on Purpose where he discusses the procrastination funnel. This tool helps you filter through your tasks to determine if you should eliminate, automate, delegate, act or procrastinate on the task.

You may wonder why would you procrastinate on purpose? The task may need to be done, but not immediately. If we do it later then we will be able to focus on higher priorities now. Combining the urgent/important grid with the procrastination funnel will set us up for the final step to help us prioritize effectively.

Know Your Top Two

Years ago the pareto principle was introduced. This idea explained how 20% of the work gets 80% of the results. Now that you have assessed your time and determined what is urgent and important narrow it down to two. If you look at what you have today, this week, this month, or this year what will get you the most return on your time. What are the two things that will get you eighty percent of your results? Focus on those two things and be confident you are investing your time in the right place.

Hopefully these tips were helpful. Take time now or today to apply these tips so you can lead yourself and those around you with more focus and effectiveness. Need a tool for this? Go here for a free downloadable resource to help you assess, decide, and focus to your top two priorities. Lead well.

Jan

2022

Leadership Stretch

When I was a teenager I could go into the weight room and pick up weights without a warm up and have zero consequences. Multiple decades later this is NOT the case. If I do that something will pull, strain, tear, or worse! I must warm up and stretch.

Stretching is neither fun nor enjoyable. On top of that the results neither come quickly nor are they glamourous. The older I get the more essential stretching becomes, but not just physically.

In his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth leadership expert John Maxwell discuss the “Law of the Rubber Band” which states:

“Growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be.”

As we age we are tempted to stick with what is safe, comfortable, and easy. There is a downside to this. We stay the same. If we choose to stay comfortable, we fail to become the person and leader we were created to be. Allow me to suggest an idea of how to stretch in four areas of self-leadership.

Physically

Since 1950 sedentary jobs have increased 83% according to the American Heart Association. John Hopkins has found that only about 20% of the U.S. workforce has physically active jobs.¹ Other parts of the world such as Uganda and China do not have this problem.² How do we grow in this area?

Move. Whatever that looks like in your life. Get a Fitbit to remind you to move every hour. Stand at work. Build in an exercise routine of walking, pushups, or working out at a gym. At first this may be painful because it will be a change, but the energy gained will be worth the discomfort of change.

Mentally

“Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking.”

David Schwartz

Thinking takes energy and a great resource I have found to get better at thinking is How Successful People Think by John Maxwell. The digital program is excellent. To grow our thinking we need to create space in our schedule and a place to think. For me that is in the morning before anyone else is up. Maybe having a journal to write your thoughts will stretch you. Have one question to reflect on and write about it. See how stretching your thinking helps you grow.

Emotionally

How do we stretch emotionally? That sounds different. I would suggest it could either be self-control or vulnerability. As a leader you may be tempted to keep your struggles to yourself. Who in your life could you process the fears and frustrations with and be more vulnerable? Maybe you allow your emotions to take control and you say things you regret. Taking time to slow down and take a deep breath or walk away and come back may be a stretch if you just want to “get it off your chest.” In the long run vulnerability and self-control will help us connect and lead more effectively.

Spiritually

I am a person of faith and you can skip this if you want. I would suggest this may be the biggest area of stretching because it pushes us to think into our purpose. Maybe the first stretch in this area is considering there may be someone bigger than us in control. For me embracing this truth decreases the burden stress brings. In my book When I Am Afraid I provide a forty day journey to move from fear to trust. If this is an area you want to stretch in check out the resource and let me know if you find it helpful.

Which of these areas do you need to stretch in? I’d love to know. Need a partner in this journey to help you think into any of these areas of self-leadership? Contact me for a no cost to you thirty-minute coaching session. Stretching is not comfortable but done consistently we grow and improve our results. Keep stretching and lead well.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2019/03/06/americans-sit-more-than-anytime-in-history-and-its-literally-killing-us/?sh=3a91bf94779d retrieved Jan. 3, 2022
https://ergonomictrends.com/sedentary-lifestyle-sitting-statistics/ retrieved Jan 3, 2022

Apr

2021

Fixed or Growth Mindset?

I was talking with a friend of mine one day about work. He was very frustrated and wanted to continue to see opportunities in his job, but he felt stuck. I said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Which of these most resonates with you: ‘this is how I am and always will be’ or ‘Up until now I’ve been this way, but I can change’?”

He paused for a moment and said, “the first one.”

We continued our conversation and after asking his permission I explained the difference between a fixed and growth mindset. In my two phrases above the first is a fixed mindset while the second is growth. Why does this even matter?

Our mindset affects every aspect of our lives. How we approach our work, money, family, leadership of others, and most importantly leading ourselves. This foundational focus influences how we make leadership decisions. Let me explain.

Limited to Plenty

Imagine you have an uncut pie in front of you and there are fifteen people who want some. We can look at that pie and say, “there is only enough for some of us to eat the pie” or is there another way? We can see the pie and think “there is plenty for all of us to each have a slice.” This perspective influences everything.

When I’ve had a business deal not go the way I want I have a choice in that moment. Will I get depressed and think there will never be another opportunity? If so, then I will wallow in self-pity, stop moving forward and possibly get depressed. The other option is to remember there is an abundance of opportunity and take the next step forward.

Can I to How Can I

We don’t remember what we were like when we were learning to walk, but I bet we had more of a growth mindset. Think about it. We probably did not fall down and then think “can I even do this walking thing?” Of course not, we fell, cried or whined a little, and eventually got back up.

I remember watching my sons learn to walk and each wobbly step took them a little further. They fell, maybe cried or not, and then got back up exemplifying the thought “how can I?” They wanted to be like the big people around them. When we have a goal worth pursuing we find solutions instead of focusing on the problem. Growth is always saying “how can I?” and taking the next step.

Stretch to Grow

I used to be a strength and conditioning coach. My role was to help the athletes get stronger, faster, and prevent injury. One athlete I remember was very talented, but when it came time to push himself he would quit.

One day he was doing an exercise and missed the final rep. I encouraged him to try one more time and he missed it again. The first words out of his mouth were “I don’t care.” That is a sign of a fixed mindset. A person who was not willing to step out of his comfort zone to stretch and grow. An athlete willing to stretch would have said “what can I do, coach?” To grow we must get uncomfortable. As we work through the discomfort we stretch and grow more into the leader we can become.

Which mindset do you most often have? If you are stuck in a fixed mindset what is one way you can get out of your comfort zone today to grow? Want a resource to help you with developing your growth mindset check out this digital resource developed by fellow Executive Director with the John Maxwell Team and retired Chief Master Sergeant Mike Lightner and myself on developing a growth mindset. Lead Well.