As the economy continues to struggle, and unemployment is at an all-time high, I find myself speaking to groups of people that are confronted with economic realities harsher than anyone in America has faced since the Great Depression. These folks have often watched their homes, cars, and certainly their savings slip through their fingers, and many of them feel that their once-stable lives are out of their control. I speak to each group for their own specific purposes, of course, but in many cases I find myself weaving a second message into my original: a message of attention.
Back in early 2002, business for motivational speakers was slow. The 9-11 disaster had stolen a lot of the power of hope and motivation, and as a whole, we had moved from serving people to searching for people to serve. I attended a gathering of some of the top names in professional speaking. We talked about how hard things were for us and for the country, and the irony of the need for hope spiking just as the demand decreased.
An expert took the stage, someone who was supposed to tell us how to survive. Instead, she told us that there “was no problem”. She told us about professional speakers that were overbooked, and had more clients than they could serve. She pointed to the need for hope, and told us that we were paying attention “incorrectly”.
The concept has been in the public sphere for centuries, under a variety of different names. The most current ‘phenomenon’ surrounding this simple concept is called The Secret, but in fact there’s no secret to it.
As a group, our attention was focused on the problem — on the lack of business. Our attempts to get more clients were focused on our own empty calendars. The busy speakers paid attention not to their own schedules, but to the needs of their clients. They approached each call not from a ‘please, I need you to hire me’ perspective, but from a ‘how can I assist you?’ point of view.
Her words moved me deeply. I knew, intellectually, that we create in our lives that which we focus on the most. If you devote your attention to your problems, they will multiply. If you pay attention to your successes and blessings, they will multiply.
So what does of this have to do with the people I talk to today? Simple: most of them are paying attention incorrectly. The economic realities that we face today are challenges — but every challenge comes with opportunity built-in. Instead of focusing on the fact that your job is tenuous (or even already gone), focus on what you can do with your time and skills if you’re not locked in to your current position.
One personal friend of mine lost a valuable job as a sales director for a major international entertainment company – and his response was to relax, cut back (of course), and start doing what he had wanted to do since his college days — play with Photoshop. Today, he makes good money as a well-known freelance Web graphics designer. By focusing on the opportunity that his change afforded him, he turned a disaster into a success.
Leadership speakers have known about this basic psychological tool for generations, but as my story above demonstrates, even we lose focus from time to time. Everyone does — the important part is to recover quickly and shift your attention back to the opportunities as firmly as you can.
As we all know, not only crazy people talk to themselves. We all spend the whole day talking to ourselves, even if we don’t realize it. Self-talk is like having a radio in our heads. We hear it wherever we are, and more often than desired, this voice is a non-stop reminder of how unlucky, bad, or silly we are. This character in our heads is an expert in getting us down through pessimism and criticism.
This voice can make us feel worthless and can leave us without control over our lives. It can convince you to not go for that one chance with that girl or boy, not to apply for your dream job, or not bother to make that positive change your life needs so much. Our inner critic feeds on the fear and the doubt it produces in us, but it is up to us to let it take control. We can easily control the radio in our heads to play the stations that work for us instead of against us.
There is a way to change the station to a more positive one every time the negative tries to take control. Follow these 3 simple steps, and turn the voice in your head into your biggest admirer:
1. First, be aware of that negative voice talking to you and what it is saying. Observe the self-talk inside your head, truly listen to it; commonly we don’t pay attention to our thoughts, they just come and go automatically, and equally control our lives. You must gain awareness of what that voice is saying. Is it saying the same thing over and over again? How is it making you feel? Most of us don’t focus consciously on what our inner voice is saying; we simply accept its judgment as the truth, and this is where many of us get stuck, sometimes for our whole lives. Negative self-talk is, in most cases, only trying to deceive us with feelings of fear and doubt. What it says is not true. Learn to recognize who truly is in control of your life.
2. Second, assess your inner voice. Learn to recognize the forms it takes: maybe it gets nervous, mad, or frightened? Maybe there is a hint of a positive voice trying to gain strength over the negative one; if there is, you should be proud. Try to focus and listen to that background positive chat more and more every time you hear it. With practice, you will eventually hear it all the time. The most important thing is that you are aware that your inner critic is just a habit of your mind and that you can easily change the station to listen to a different tune, one that makes you feel good, energized, and proud about yourself and your life.
3. Now, after consciously recognizing, listening, and evaluating your inner critic, you can start replacing negative talk with positive one. Give the good talk space to speak, and encourage it through positive affirmations, until you feel the change inside yourself. Affirmations are very powerful; these energize you and prompt you to act positively. If you feel resistance, try this: As soon as you identify the negative talk nagging you with something like “I can’t do anything right”, instantly change that into a positive affirmation, like “Everything I do turns out right”. This is a very powerful exercise because it allows you to assess how each statement makes you feel, and you will want to continue giving yourself bigger doses of positive talk every time.
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We hear it all the time; so many people so sure about their intention of focusing on what they truly want. They are so certain, their attitudes are so positive, and yet, nothing seems to happen. “I have done it all, BUT everything is the same”, Stephen says. He is fast to point out that he hasn’t moved a bit in the direction of his dreams.
We must remember that our language is directly linked to our thoughts; thus, we have to pay attention to what we say and how we say it in order to understand a great deal about our way of thinking. Right there, where Stephen said ‘BUT’, is the key.
One has to make it a conscious habit to catch one’s words. This could easily be the only opportunity you have to actually catch your true thoughts, because the only reason you could catch yourself is because you are going to say it out loud, otherwise, it would just stay back there, in your subconscious. The subconscious is happy to grab everything you pay some attention to, whether it is valuable or not, thus, in order to refine its choices, you could refine your language.
In our vocabulary there are millions of words, however, we use a small amount of those millions regularly. The amount of words we use depends directly on our upbringing and education, and one thing is certain: no matter how we were raised or what kind of education we have received, in order to be successful in life we have to be conscious of the words we speak and learn to differentiate what words are meaningful and which ones are pure junk.
No matter where we come from, there are certain words everyone should eliminate from their vocabulary if they want to make their life big, and want to make it big in life. These words are:
- But
- Don’t
- No
- Never
- Can’t
- Should
- Try
- Might
- Want
- Hope
All the words above express some kind of doubt, incapability, negativity, unwillingness, and lack of control. Let’s take ‘hope’ for example; ‘hope’ is a major success among people. People love what ‘hope’ stands for; nevertheless, this word is normally used to express desperation, more than real hope.
If you think this is trivial, think again. Remember, our words are tightly linked to our thoughts; whatever you say is deeply entrenched in your mind, so, when you consciously keep out of your vocabulary certain words, you are making yourself think in a more positive way. As everything, changing your vocabulary needs training, and it may seem difficult at first, however, if you learn some new great words to substitute the less positive ones, it may make it easier to switch:
- Yes
- And
- More
- Chose
- Intent
- Plan
- Can
- Will
- Trust
- Allow
Start using these words more in your daily conversations and you will experience MAGIC, there you go! Another great word!
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Many successful writers have talked about incredible ways to prioritize our tasks, organize our days, and get the best out of our time by focusing on what is truly important for our success in life.
All this makes a lot of sense and even sounds wise. Many of us try to apply it to our lives in an attempt to become better human beings and professionals; however, there is one little, or maybe not so little, thing called procrastination.
An important part of the active population of the world suffers from procrastination, a condition that makes us ignore behaviors and actions that could enhance our lives and change them for the better. In order to get over this condition, one must find its root, which in many cases seems to be fear. Some studies have established that there are three aspects that influence procrastination:
- Confidence in oneself, an issue guided by fear
- The need for immediate fulfillment, due to early programming
- Impulsiveness, trait of immature behaviors designed to meet early needs
Basically, it is different for each person; it depends on his or her upbringing and how he or she has developed ways to fulfill his or her basic human needs.
As a child, Susan commonly felt she had no power over her controlling father; thus, she procrastinated to feel in control and to feel free. Eventually, Susan learned a different and positive way to feel powerful, but this was only possible after she identified where the problem was.
Roger is a senior executive at a marketing firm. At one point he was so overwhelmed by work that when his boss asked him to handle a new assignment he became extremely anxious. He was so scared of not being able to do it right that he just avoided the project. He procrastinated.
People mistakenly confuse procrastination with laziness; however, laziness does not encompass a dose of guilt, while procrastination makes the person feel extremely guilty, and he or she punishes him or herself. It eventually becomes a vicious cycle, because the more the person punishes himself or herself, the more they procrastinate, and the more they procrastinate, the more they punish themselves, leading to a complete self-esteem crisis.
The good news is that there is a way out of this negative behavior, and here we show you 4 steps to get you there:
1. You have to recognize that procrastination is not something you ‘caught’ yesterday. You have to be willing to go deep into your life to find the root, and a good way to start is to try to identify when it started affecting you.
2. You have to allow yourself to act in spite of the emotion. You can have negative feelings, everyone does, but the difference lies in whether you let those feelings rule your behavior or not. We shouldn’t let emotions guide our actions, but we commonly do, especially when there is fear or guilt involved.
3. You can start small. Think of what you could do, a small task, that would get you started and out of procrastinating. It can be the smallest thing. Let’s say you have been neglecting cleaning the attic. You can start by making a list of everything you remember is in storage there, next, think of what you would like to do with some of the stuff; maybe you would like to give some furniture pieces to your daughter, or donate a box of books to your community’s elderly home.
4. You have to be aware of distractions. These can control you if you don’t control them. Honestly think about what distracts you from acting on your goals. It could be something like checking your inbox, soap opera time, or playing solitaire to ‘relax’, only you know what excuses you make up.
Each small step you take will make you feel stronger and better, and if you can imagine how good it will feel to get there, you can certainly get motivated to complete the task.
Maybe the most important thing is to learn to forgive ourselves. We are human beings, and when we have to overcome a condition such as procrastination we have to understand that it takes time to heal and that we deserve to be kind to ourselves.
Now you are ready to start your journey; do not waste another second! Get going and start living!
Become the Leader Your Company Needs. Get My 6 FREE Leadership Videos Here: www.JohnHersey.com
Many of us should put a little thought into what it is that we want to achieve by proving that we are right and, thus, that others are plainly wrong. Most of the times what happens is that we win a quarrel but lose an acquaintance, even a friend. We seriously should stop to ask ourselves why is it that we deviate so much from our goals when we feel challenged or afraid.
Every intelligent professional knows that when we deal with people, be it to provide a service for a client, negotiate a contract, or motivate an employee, if we make them feel worthy they will care a lot for what we have to say; however, as soon as they utter a word in the wrong direction, it is very difficult for us to stop ourselves from letting them know how wrong they are, with the inevitable consequence: our power to inspire is gone, and we are just left with a discussion between our hands.
This is possibly the most common way to boycott ourselves, as human beings, and our businesses. Maybe we are just being human; maybe it is in our nature to be foolish, so, how do we move beyond needing to be right to the point where we truly show we care for others and our business?
There are studies that have tested thousands of communicators and identified a common practice among the most successful ones. These people work to not make others be wrong. And, how exactly do they do it?
These successful communicators lowered their expectations of the others’ behaviors before meeting with them. As it turns out, this lowered the chance of making a big deal out of what was said during the climax of the conversation. These communicators consciously decided to arrive to a meeting not to make the person be wrong but to focus on the areas where he or she was knowledgeable and had a good point. Eventually, when the time came and these people showed less than perfect understanding, the communicators were able to react calmly and get the best out of the situation.
This may not sound ‘business professional’ to some, until you stop to think that it is much better than the alternative: putting yourself into a communication fight to prove who is the cleverest, most intelligent, and wisest person in the room. You can be right, but you most definitely don’t need to make others be wrong to prove it.
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Leaders are just as inclined to be resistant in certain areas and issues as anyone else. The difference is Contagious Leaders work through their resistance.
We can work through our resistance by:
acknowledging the resistance in the first place
calling it what it is, resistance to something we should be doing or working on
stop avoiding it and work in the resistance, nothing else, just the resistance we are experiencing
share our resistance with others
journal about it, meditate on it or otherwise do whatever we have to do to begin calling it out
change the story we have about that which we are resistant to. How do we do that? Simple, create a new one with a happier ending.
Working harder and longer and demanding more of our people is not always effective leadership. Sometimes Contagious Leaders know to practice doing less to achieve more.
The “Why We Can’t ” Conversation is all around us. We must create a supportive environment to exercise the “How We Will” muscle.
“Why We Can’t” is an attitude that exists in every profession, every organization. Our job as Contagious Leaders is to make ourselves so fit that it does not get through to reduce the effectiveness of our organization. We must stay in the “How We Will” conversation all the time by surrounding ourselves with “How We Will” thinkers, doers, believers. Otherwise, our “How We Will” muscle atrophies, we become weak and we revert to the “Why We Can’t” conversation.
The good news is that with some time the “Why We Can’t” conversation just doesn’t stop by anymore. Defeated and deflated it just goes away leaving us and our teams to achieve greatness.
Sometimes even the best contagious leaders find themselves waiting for inspiration even though we know that the best tactic is to just get on with getting it done. Read what our friend and mentor Steve Chandler says about waiting for inspiration– go to http://tinyurl.com/yf2bzg5
During the past couple of years I have become more serious than usual (and I tend to have a serious nature). In April of this year my life and business had gotten so serious that I decided, much to Beverly’s relief, that it was time to make some changes. Since then I have been on a mission to learn to have fun again. Not only has it made me a better person (at least more tolerable to be around), but it has made me a better leader as well. I have discovered that really great leaders are broad thinkers, not narrow minded. Great thinkers have diverse interests. And, really great leaders enjoy leading.
John and Bev dancing at EuroRhythm
In my pursuit to learn to have fun again I have engaged in as many wonderful and new experiences as possible. We’ll share some of them with you from time to time. Beverly and I have taken up ballroom dancing (this is amazing fun,; check out EuroRythm Studios) and photography while expanding our interests in learning about wine, cooking, travel and Opera.
This weekend we engaged in several of these activitites. A ballroom dancing event Friday evening, Tosca at The Met at the Movies (fabulous and you must try this) on Saturday, and a musical Saturday evening. Sunday was the topper. We took a helicopter to Four Peaks Mountain and toured one of the finest (certainly the hardest to reach ) Amathyst mines in the world. The pictures below say it all.
Boarding Helicopter for Four Peaks Mine
Entering the Mine (From L-R; Doc, John, Garrett, Bev and Donna in front)
John Having Fun, Hard Hat and All
We got to keep the minerals we mined and the people at Sami’s Fine Jewelry will process, cut and polish the best of our stones and give it to us. Bev had some pretty huge rocks so maybe we’ll retire soon.
Finally, Just in case you are thinking this was looking like lots of work and very little fun check out the picture below.
John & Bev
You have no doubt heard the saying about all work and no play making John a dull boy. Learn to have fun again and the work and play will make us all better leaders. Besides, it makes for Unforgettable Weekends filled with Unforgettable Experiences.
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