Search Results for: Not for me

Every September on my birthday, I purposely reflect on my past year: adventures, accomplishments, challenges, disappointments, joys, and relationships.

Management guru Peter Drucker would have approved, “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”

Sports teams review footage of their games. Actors watch their performances. Artists step back to assess their creations.

Similarly we need to review our own footage to evaluate our actions and results.

Why?

• Our brains need an opportunity to digest and process events.
• We experience a boost in self-efficacy when we reflect.
• Only when we assess what’s working and what isn’t can we learn and improve our results.
• Reflection increases our self-awareness and empathy which increases our authenticity and trust.
• To intentionally create the story in front of us, we need to understand the one behind us.

How? Keep a Leadership Log

Use bullet-points, phrases, words, pictures, even emoticons (on paper or in an app) to assess and capture the following reflections:

1. How do I feel about my job/life right now?
2. What’s working for me? 
3. What’s challenging me? 
4. What needs to change?
5. What am I committed to doing differently?
6. Where should I invest some attention and intention?
7. What difference am I making?
8. Where have I experimented?
9. What have I learned this week/month?
10. What’s the most remarkable idea I’ve had/heard this week? What am I doing about it?

Whether we log our reflections daily, weekly, or monthly, it’s essential to gain access to our own insights – they give us courage to make a difference not just produce a result.

Arkudi Kuhlmann knew the power of the reflective pause. As CEO of ING Direct, he placed a sign above the exit of the building asking his team to consider: “Did today matter?”

Ted Murphy, founder of marketing software company IZEA, was interviewed recently for an INC Magazine article on how to push yourself to the next level.

His advice? Streak Running.

Murphy runs 1 mile every day, rain or shine.

Murphy reflects, “I’ve been Streak Running since 2015… 1,200 days straight. Streak Running creates a psychological bond to the act of running and to maintaining the streak.”

He’s right!

Research reveals that perseverance, sweat, and hard work trigger the release of dopamine… the feel-good chemicals in our brain. So the act of accomplishing something (like running a mile a day) neurochemically boosts our confidence and makes us feel good about ourselves!

While Murphy has created a streak around running, we could apply this streak concept to any activity.

Retired Navy SEAL Admiral William H. McRaven promotes Streak Bed-Making in his book Make Your Bed. McRaven makes his bed every morning in order to start the day by completing a task.

As an author, I find success Streak Writing. Whenever I am producing a book, I write every day until the book is complete.

And to the delight of my dentist, I have been Streak Flossing since January 2005, flossing now for 5,045 days!

Streak Runner Murphy insightfully observes, “Once you cross 50, 100, or 1,000 days straight of any activity, you are much less likely to decide that today is the day you are going to quit.”

With a little perseverance and hard work, we can release a flood of dopamine and push ourselves to the next level: Streak Thank-You-Note-Writing, Streak Birthday-Wishing, Streak Journaling, Streak Desk-Cleaning, Streak Sales-Calling…

So, what’s your Streak? 

I just completed my Banff to Yellowstone bike ride: 13 days on a bike cycling over 800 miles and climbing over 28,000 feet of mountains.

The scenery was stunning. The Canadian Rockies were incredible. Montana was breathtaking. Crossing the Continental Divide on a bike was a literal and figurative high.

Upon reflection, the secret to all of my cycling adventures can be summed up with one word: mindset.

In Carol Dweck’s exceptional book, Mindset, she describes two dominating mindsets that influence our behaviors:

• Growth Mindset: people believe they can grow and change through application and experience
• Fixed Mindset: people believe that intelligence, personality, and creativity are fixed traits that don’t change through application and experience

But after my 6th cycling adventure, I’ve decided that there is another mindset that allows me to accomplish each challenge: a Relentless Mindset

Each day, my three cycling buddies and I pedaled mile after mile in spite of sore muscles, screaming sit bones, cold temperatures (42 degrees), heat (102 degrees), rain, wind, trucks, RVs, rolling hills, mountain passes, bee stings, flat tires, and age (two of the cyclists on this trip are over 70!).

It’s on these adventures that we answer only to our commitment and not to our feelings.

Regardless of how anyone felt (tired, sore, irritated, old), we pedaled. We made a commitment to ourselves and to each other to cycle over 800 miles, and that’s what we did.

We pedaled in spite of how we felt.

That’s a Relentless Mindset.

And when I reflect on all the other great things I’ve accomplished in my life, I can attribute my success to that Relentless Mindset.

For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. – Carol Dweck

At 39 Dan Schulman was president of AT&T’s core consumer long distance business when he quit his job.

In an interview for the New York Times, he reflected, “My view was not so much that leaving was a risk. I actually thought, it’s more risky to stand still.”

Today Schulman is President and CEO of PayPal.

Author Anais Nin is famous for writing: “And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

But “to blossom” doesn’t mean that we have to quit jobs, get divorced, or reinvent our lives. It could simply mean taking action where once we felt paralyzed.

Simply put, the opposite of standing still is being in motion.

So what does being in motion look like? That depends entirely on you. It might mean:

• Taking on a new project that is outside of your comfort zone
• Speaking up when others are silent
• Saying “yes” without knowing the “how”
• Going solo to an event or the movies
• Trying out a new hobby or sport

The secret is not to compare your “motion” to anyone else’s.

For every amazing bike ride I do, there are people who are doing even more amazing bike rides. For every one of my accomplishments, there is someone who has accomplished even more.

We can only compare our motion today to our motion yesterday.

Am I standing still today or am I taking new actions, becoming a bigger, better, bolder version of myself? What am I doing today that I wasn’t brave enough to do yesterday?

It’s you today vs. you yesterday.

Ubuntu (oo-boon-too): an old African word meaning “humanity,” beautifully translated as, “I am because we are.”

Essentially, we can only experience our humanity through our interactions with others.

Ubuntu compels us to look after each other with kindness, compassion, and generosity of spirit.

I discovered Ubuntu staying at a Radisson. It was 3:00am when I called the front desk looking for some medicine for a deep cut on my ankle that I had ignored all day. The throbbing became unbearable.

Sheila answered the phone, but couldn’t even locate a Band-Aid. Distressingly I winched, “Then I’ll need to find a 24-hour pharmacy…”

Quickly discerning my pain, Sheila announced, “Wait! Let me see what I can do.” She then enlisted a colleague to cover the front desk while she ran across the street to another hotel to find some medicine for me. Sheila met me in the lobby with pain-relieving ointment, bandages, and a lot of sympathy.

In our short interaction, Sheila alleviated my pain, saved my meeting the next day, and inspired me with her patience, resourcefulness, and benevolence.

That’s the power of Ubuntu!

Like Sheila, in any moment, we can lead with Ubuntu

Once we realize that we are who we are because of (not in spite of) the people we work with, we can intentionally embrace opportunities to make a difference.

How?

• Listening to and learning about others
• Mentoring, coaching, sponsoring others as they pursue goals
• Recognizing, appreciating others and celebrating their wins
• Being patient in the midst of pressure
• Seeking first to understand in the face of judgment
• Going out of our way to help and contribute

We don’t get paid for bringing Ubuntu to our jobs. But leading with Ubuntu, we have the power to be not only better leaders, but better human beings.

• 60 years ago we didn’t own a personal computer
• 27 years ago we didn’t have access to the Internet
• 14 years ago we didn’t have a Facebook or LinkedIn account
• 11 years ago we were not addicted to our smartphones

Constantly connected by screens at home and at work, no wonder it feels like we never have time.

Until a holiday comes along. And suddenly we hit the pause button on all that seems to seize our time and attention.

Whether it’s a national or religious holiday, a vacation, or simply a weekend, here’s why we should be pushing the pause button more often:

1. Improved Body and Mind: Studies show a break improves our sleep, our mood, and our blood pressure.

2. Ruminating Respite: A break allows us to step back and assess with a fresh perspective that which we had been anxiously brooding. And research shows that upon returning to work, our respite from ruminating lasts up to two weeks!

3. Creativity Shift: Because we stop ruminating, studies confirm that when we return to work, our thinking becomes more flexible, collaborative, and innovative.

4. Recharge: Athletes schedule recovery breaks in their training to maintain top performance. Similarly we need recovery breaks from work in order to perform at our best.

5. Increased Positivity: Research reveals that taking a break provides us with a boost of enthusiasm, excitement, and positivity in anticipation of the break and upon return.

So embrace the pause this holiday offers: an opportunity to restore the body, ruminate less, think differently, recharge, and return with refreshed energy to create whatever is next!

Happy Pause Button!

Shoshin is a concept in Zen Buddhism that means “beginner’s mind.”

Like children, beginners are open to new learning and discovering. But as we collect experiences and knowledge in a subject, a job, or in life, we tend to ignore new information.

Eventually we listen for information that confirms and validates what we already know and believe.

Unfortunately when we approach situations hauling our preconceptions, assumptions, and biases, our perspective becomes clouded, like smudged eyeglasses.  We aren’t open and eager, like beginners. We are dogmatic and opinionated, like experts.

Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki remarked, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”

This impenetrable approach blocks our ability to learn anything new…

unless we intentionally bring our Shoshin.

Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO of Salesforce, recently shared in the New York Times, “Having a beginner’s mind informs my management style.  I’m trying to listen deeply, and the beginner’s mind is informing me to step back, so that I can create what wants to be not what was. I know that the future does not equal the past.

I know I have to be here in the moment.” So how can we bring our Shoshin?

1. Lead with questions, not advice.
2. Respond, “Interesting. Tell me more.”
3. Observe and listen.
4. Be curious… I wonder what makes her say that? I wonder what I’m missing.
5. Look for blindspots… we all have them.
6. Imagine the situation from the other person’s perspective.
7. Stop being right.In a world of bossy close-mindedness, we could use a bit more childlike openness.