Category: Growth

A great quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt “the only thing to fear is fear itself” rings loud and true today. There are so many people that I hear speaking from a place of fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of speaking up, fear of being judged, fear of public speaking, and fear of rejection to name a few of the fears I often see stop people from reaching their goals.

What are your fears? How much do they affect you and your decisions? How have they held you back?

Have you ever stopped to think about whether fear is real? Can you see, touch, eat, smell, or hear fear? Can fear even hurt you? Since the answer to those questions is no, why do we spend so much time living with it? People and situations can injure you physically or emotionally, that is true, but fear cannot, and fearing situations that are not life threatening and pose no actual harm will stop you from reaching your true potential in life and in business.

Fear makes sense from the fight or flight response that we needed when and bears and neighboring tribes were the enemy. Without laying out all the science of the hormones behind your fight or flight response, what is important is to understand is that your body releases stress hormones when you have to take action around something you “fear.” These hormones increase blood sugar, heart rate, and blood pressure, while shutting down nonessential systems like digestion and immune and hampering our focus on small tasks. This all made sense because we needed the increased blood sugar and heart rate for big tasks like running or fighting, rather than small tasks like digestion or focus on details.

The challenge is that we are now constantly putting ourselves into this state of stress when we create fears around non-life threatening events. You don’t often have to run for your lives anymore, but our bodies and brains do not know that. We still have the caveman part of our brain and our fight or flight response has not changed. As a result, all the fears that do not threaten your life are not only causing you to waste time and energy in reaching your goals, but are also causing physical and emotional issues as well. I am not saying that having a healthy sense of fear is bad, you do need to know when to step back from the ledge, when to jump out of the way of a speeding car, or when to grab a child away from a rabid animal; and fear or the flight or flight response gears us up to do all of that.

However, how many times have you worried about or feared a situation, conversation, or outcome, only to find that what ended up happening wasn’t even close to what you had created in your mind? I’ve spent more time than I would like to admit having made-up conversations in my head, causing stress and fear out of nothing and wasting precious time and energy that I could have used being happy and productive. I have also been able to trace digestive and join pain issues to stress caused from fears that I created in my mind as well.

One of the things I have learned to do is to observe the fearful thoughts and stop them in their tracks the minute I notice them happening. When you observe your thoughts you can change them. The next time you start to worry or fear something ask yourself “what evidence do I have of the outcome?” What’s another outcome or story that could be just as true as the one you are telling yourself? The old acronym for FEAR is good to remember – False Evidence Appearing Real.

Because your brain translates what you see into perceptions based on the filters you have created, you really do create your reality. The filters are the stories you use to explain the world around you. These perceptions feel like reality, but they are only as real as you want them to be. You can always change the story.

Some people see a rain cloud and think, “Oh man, it’s going to rain and ruin my day,” while someone else sees a rain cloud and finds gratitude because their garden is dry. Different perceptions = different realities. Someone gets on stage excited because they get to share something with a group and make a difference while someone else sees the same group and the same stage as a place of judgment and thinks, “What if I mess up and look stupid? What if I fail?” The events are the same, speaking on stage and sharing information. The only difference between these two speakers is their thoughts. My bet is the person who is excited will be a much better presenter than the person who is afraid of failing or looking stupid even if they have the exact same information to share. They are indeed in control of their outcome and through their thoughts create their reality. Just like I said before the more you start to observe your thoughts and ask meaningful questions of yourself, the more you can change your thoughts, change your story, and change your reality.

The reason I like the quote “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” is because it is the fearful thought itself that is debilitating not the thing you fear. Of course bad things can happen that you cannot control. You can make an investment that goes south where money is lost, you might loose a job, not get the second date, and great opportunities are sometimes missed. While you can’t completely control these situations you can control how you respond to them, how you might plan in the event that they happen, or use them in your basis for making decisions. And since you cannot predict them or completely control them you should not live in fear of them.

When you stop doing new things because of a fearful thought, now that is something to be afraid of. When you are able to let go of the fear and live your life, magic happens. Or you can decide to “feel the fear and do it anyway” as Susan Jeffers discusses in her book with the same title. Whether you let go of the fear or do something despite the fear, your results are going to include more fun, more joy, more love, more abundance, and more wealth. You are going to continue moving forward and towards your goals and dreams.

When you live in fear you question those around you and you don’t let new people or new experiences in. You miss out on the journey and experience of life and when you really think about it that is the purpose of being here. You don’t get to take any of the material things with you when we go. Most likely we will only be remembered for a few generations at the most, I honestly cannot tell you my great grandparents names, so why spend the precious time you have in this beautiful life fearing anything that is not real?

None of us know what the future holds, we never will, regardless of how hard we try to predict the future by creating scenarios in our head. So if you are going to spend time trying to predict the future by telling yourself how something is going to turn out, change the story so the ending is one of happily ever after. After all you do create your own reality so choose one that is fun and fulfilling.

For more resources or to contact me please visit www.c-suiteresults.com

When I was a kid, my teachers labeled me the class clown. I wasn’t one for long winded jokes, but I was always ready with a snappy comeback, a sarcastic comment or a funny observation. My classmates loved my wisecracks, but I have to admit that I spent more time honing my sense of humor than reading my textbooks.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve held onto my wisecracking ways and yet, I’ve been successful in business.

Research confirms that my success isn’t just an accident (though of course I like to think that I am exceptionally witty). According to a study conducted by the Harvard and University of Pennsylvania business schools, using humor effectively can actually bolster your status at work. If you can make people laugh, they’ll think you are more competent and confident than you might actually be.

“If you are brave enough to tell the joke you want to tell, whether it succeeds or not, people ascribe confidence to you because they see you as efficacious” for taking the risk, considering all the ways a joke can go poorly, said one of the study’s co-authors, Allison Wood Brooks of the Harvard Business School.

I’ve experienced this firsthand. Back when I had a corporate job, I showed up for one of my first senior level meetings and sat waiting for the meeting to start. The room was silent. It was weird, and I felt uncomfortable, so I said something funny. I asked these senior level execs how their weekend was. They looked at me like I had two heads, but I ignored them and went on to tell a funny tale about my own weekend. Lucky for me, they laughed, and the funny remarks I made during that meeting made a big difference in my career.

Since then, I’ve learned that it’s good to use your sense of humor in business. I don’t think people do it enough. If you can make people laugh, they’ll enjoy being around you, and they’ll want to do business with you.

The Harvard and Penn study bears this out. Interestingly, though, the study found that telling a joke that flops doesn’t hurt your status as much as you’d think because you’re still seen as a confident risk taker. But if you use humor inappropriately – say, making a joke about 9/11 while visiting a Manhattan skyscraper – your status can fall dramatically!

My Tips for Using Humor When Conducting Business

After a lifetime of wisecracking my way through business meetings, presentations and the like, I have some advice on when to use humor for the greatest impact:

• When you’re building a relationship. Bantering with clients helps “break the ice” and create a better rapport. If someone likes you, they’re more likely to trust you and want to do business with you.
• When you’re giving a speech. People remember things better when they’ve had a good laugh, so I try to get the audience laughing at my keynote speeches. Since I work in the customer experience field, I’m always able to find a funny story of a customer’s terrible experience!
• When you need the audience to focus on something serious. This sounds counter-intuitive, but if you’re making serious points, audiences can start to tune you out. Throw in a joke and they’re more likely to stay engaged long enough to take in the real message. In our Customer Experience Management Training, we use stories of truly horrendous customer experiences to get them laughing while also absorbing a key concept.
• When you want to create a better work environment. No job is fun all the time, and humor can do a lot to lighten the workplace atmosphere. And a happier environment means a more engaged, cooperative and productive team.

Making Humor Part of Your Customer Experience

When you use humor in your customer experience, you trigger an emotional reaction in your customer, whether it’s amusement, surprise or delight. These positive emotions engage customers in ways that add value to your business. Here are some ways to incorporate humor into your customer experience:

• Find the right time and place. Wisecracks may not be well-received if they come from the representative who handles customer complaints. But your customers may love funny quips from front-line staff.
• Always be tasteful. Remember that inappropriate jokes reduce your status. That goes for your brand as well as you.
• Train employees on what’s tasteful and what’s not, and especially avoid jokes that can demean or insult any group of people.
• Be natural. Scripted jokes don’t go as well as natural and genuine banter that lets personalities shine.
  Laugh with them, not at them. You can joke about yourself, but never make jokes at other people’s expense.

Humor is a great business tool that’s not used nearly enough. It can improve your status within an organization, help you win more business, and strengthen your relationship with customers. And I for one would enjoy having more business people to joke around with.

How do you use humor in your business? Tell me about it in the comments box below.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

How to Succeed at Your New Job

8 Leadership Strategies from an Influencer
5 To-Do’s for any 22 Year Old’s Career
Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of six bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.
Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

What do you want to be when you grow up? That is a question most, if not everyone heard when they were kids. Now as adults have you ever asked yourself that question again? Most likely if you have it’s for one of two reasons. Either you found yourself in a career that does not align with who you are at your core or you have reached a level of success that has you feeling “now what”? If you have many days where you are just going through the motions, not feeling engaged or satisfied it sounds like you may no longer be enjoying your work.

Gallup continues to report numbers like 30% for employee engagement and it seems that it is only a rare few who are excited about their work.

If you are part of the 70% who are disengaged at work, you might feel that the other 30% just got lucky and maybe you even feel that it’s not fair. Let me put your mind at ease a bit: it’s not your fault. You can only blame yourself if you continue to do work you don’t like once you understand the paradigm I’m going to share.

A quick caveat, this is not about the people you work with. If you love the type of work you do, but don’t like the people you do it with or the company you work for, that is different from not liking or being disengaged from the work itself. What I’m talking about are those people who are disengaged from the work because of the work itself or the way the work is carried out.

Now let’s get to the new way of looking at the problem and discuss the solution. Most likely, you picked your field of study based on external conditions or pressures vs. an internal understanding of how you are wired. What I mean is that many people go to school and study what they are told to study, what their parents encourage them to do, what teachers encouraged them to do, or in a field that they believe is practical so they can find work after school. That’s what I did, I was told I had to go to college and I picked business and accounting because that meant I would find a decent paying job when I finished, plus at the time it meant that I didn’t have to write many papers. That was a decision that took over 15 years to correct and a lot of disengagement along the way. I won’t call that choice a mistake because I did the best with the tools and knowledge I had when I was 17, but let me tell you, if I knew then what I know now about how I’m wired I sure would have gone in a very different direction.

What do I mean by how I am wired or who you are at your core? What I mean is that you are a unique recipe that makes you like and dislike certain activities, excel or flounder with different skills, and makes up who you truly are. It’s like what Maslow discusses with his hierarchy of needs and self-actualization. Human beings have an inner bent – the innate unchanging part of us that gives us a sense of fulfillment and contribution. Another way to say this is that people have an innate unchanging nature that predisposes them to want to make a certain contribution in a certain way. When you are not working or living in a manner that allows you to contribute in the way you were born to contribute, that can lead to disengagement.

The good news is that regardless of how grown up you are, it is never too late to discover what you are meant do or how you are wired, as long as you want something different. Instead of continuing to live based on chance or what other people think you should or shouldn’t do, you can design the life and career you want.

What would be different for you if you jumped out of bed every morning because the work you do is aligned with who you are at your core? What would be different if you were really excited about your job, your company, and what you contribute?

The first step is to really know who you are and how your innate nature drives you. Are you someone who loves building relationships and teams, and is driven by ideas, but not so much by details? Or are you someone who loves numbers, budgets, research, and all the details? Do you go a little crazy when someone else just wants to wing it? Maybe you like to invent, create, lead, and build; or maybe you like to listen, gather information, and work on creating solutions. These are all valuable, we all have different combinations of these types of energies, and when you get to use the energies that you are wired for, the magic starts to happen.

My personal experience with this comes from the fact that it took over 15 years to align who I am with what I do. I was a very successful information security consultant and I was very good at my job, but it made me miserable. I dreaded Monday and definitely had the Sunday night blues. I had anxiety at times about the work because I knew how much I did not want to write that next report or nit-pick the smallest details with the QA department. The part of the job I liked the most, was the part I got to do the least. When I would get to help my clients actually solve problems and when I got to spend time really getting to understand their businesses and how things work. I did not enjoy the repetitive questions I had to ask every client and the same report that I had to write over and over. I enjoy being creative and fluid, not systematic and sequential. I also know that people assume that I am an extrovert because I am not shy and can talk a lot, but in reality I am really quite introverted. I get drained when spending days on end talking to people and that part of the old job exhausted me. However there were lots of other folks who thrived in that role because they liked and were wired for the tasks and roles that I was not.

It took a lot of trial and error for me to figure this out, but there are lots of tools and ways to go about assessing who you are to better determine what you should be doing. This is not something I can go through in this article. I am writing this for you to start thinking about who you are and the work you do. This is a paradigm shift where you start to understand why you have been disengaged for so long. I want you to know that it’s never too late to do something different, something that lights you up.

So if you are like many people (previously this included me) who wound up in a career where there is little to no satisfaction, then it’s time to discover who you are and make a change to the work that aligns with you. I like to remember that the pain of discipline (or the pain of change) is much better than the pain of regret.

This is one of the services I offer my clients and If I can help support you in making a change or identifying your core values and strengths please reach out to me at sharon@c-suiteresults.com or visit c-suiteresults.com