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Category: Health and Wellness

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Best Practices Body Language Culture Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

What to do When Whatever Can Happen Suddenly Does and Tries to Destroy Your Meeting – Part I

You know Murphy’s Law – the idea that whatever can happen, will.  Just this very busy, post holiday season I was reminded of a time that Murphy’s Law struck again. Literally!

What reminded me about it was this week’s marathon of groups and still another exciting moment on AA.  [Not alcoholics anonymous, American Airlines.].   My certified, regulation rollie would not fit in the overhead no matter how I tried to squish it, turn it, wheels first, handle first, sideways, upside down, just no way.   Nor would it fit under the supposedly regulation space under the seat in front of me.  [NOT!]  The flight attendant with the frazzled high pitched squeaky voice told me I had to check it.  She also told me I had to take it out to the gate, but of course there was no time to do that.  I wouldn’t get back on the flight.  To the dismay of my fellow passengers lined up behind me and quite a little frantic myself, I hurriedly opened my bag ,wrenched out my boots, my 3 hard cover books including focus group bashing, “How Customers Think”, and an awkwardly shaped dispenser of progesterone cream [how mortifying] – all of which were preventing squishage.  With those items sprawled over my seat and that of my seat mate [who was waiting behind me and who never spoke to me through out the 4 hour flight][1] I was finally able to compress the bag enough that I could jam it into the compartment.  After I stowed my boots, books and embarrassing bio basics, I settled into my seat and couldn’t help but recall another Murphy moment a number of years ago.

I was on another plane.  My fourteen pound Think Pad was on my lap. (Don’t ask me why I had such a heavy laptop. Pretty ridiculous I know. But I like having all the bells and whistles of a desk top in a laptop with a big screen.  Gives me a little extra exercise I guess.) Anyway, Dennis, our very pleasant flight attendant told me he would have to stow it overhead for take off, but would give it back to me once we were allowed to use electronic equipment again. And boy did he ever give it to me.  About 20 minutes into the flight,

I caught his eye and asked if this would be a good time to get my computer. “No problem,” he smiled. Famous last words!

Dennis opened the compartment, grasped the computer and… proceeded to drop it on my head. Major OUCH!!!  I saw stars and heard Tweetie birds singing. It crashed onto the top of my head and then clunked down onto my left thumb on it’s way down to attacking the big toe on my sandaled foot. People around me lurched in their seats. Dennis ran for an ice pack.

It hurt.

Mini concussion?  Compressed vertebrae?  Please, no, I had to write up a top line on the study I had just completed on osteoporosis. Getting off the plane at La Guardia, I found myself somewhat dazed and foggy for the next several hours.  The next day, I went to the doctor and was reassured I’d be fine.

What still amazes me is how I went through that trauma with virtually no residual effects. Once my neck was adjusted in the doctor’s office, the shock passed through my
body. My thinking refocused. With a neck adjustment and a little rest, I was fine the next morning.

It was interesting to observe the reactions of the passengers around me in the plane after the jolt of the mini crisis was over. Everyone kept looking up as if another computer would suddenly take wing, fly out of the overhead and crash down on them. They laughed nervously about it, made jokes, but also kept a watchful eye on the overhead compartments, taking time and attention away from working, reading a book or just relaxing. Murphy was nodding knowingly. I’d been flying for many years and have never before seen anyone accosted by a Kamikaze computer or any other item from the overhead[2]. Nevertheless, the
passengers on the plane had become aware of the possibility that such an event could happen and were therefore on heightened alert, anxious that they seemed to have no safeguard in place.

This incredibly rare experience, which left me feeling like the sky might actually be falling for the rest of the day, reminded me of how we group leaders and facilitators sometimes fear an outburst of Murphy’s Law in our group sessions and need to have precautions in place in the unlikely event that the respondent from Hell (“Super Grumpy”) happens to show up in one of our sessions.

In our training classes, people tell us that they most dread the possibility of an encounter with an irate, attacking participant who shows up without warning. While he is probably not likely to appear very frequently, this most feared individual is the transformed “Incredible Hulk” who threatens to destroy group process by explosively regurgitating his intense relevant or irrelevant rage at the leader and all over the group. (Yes – I’m mixing metaphors … Super Grumpy + Incredible Hulk … but I’m doing it on purpose … you’ll see why.)

It could happen. It’s unlikely to happen. In my own 25+ years of running groups it has happened maybe 10 times. However, the unpleasant experience and idea that this wildly uncontrollable character can sabotage the group, the outcome and the image of the leader to his/her client, can leaves you  looking up at the overhead, wondering when a group member’s accidental or purposeful aggression might erupt in the session and land on his head.

A little stage fright is energizing and keeps us on our toes. On the other hand, anxiety over unpredictable aggression without techniques for dealing with it detracts from our ability to perform at our best.

Let’s think about the Incredible Hulk for a minute. This is a basically good guy who is transformed by an impulsive temper into a giant muscle bound monster of fury. I’m going to digress just a bit to tell a little of his story.

Unless you’re a Hulk aficionado you probably don’t know that Bruce Banner, AKA The Incredible Hulk, was a product of an insanely jealous father who murdered Bruce’s mother in a green-eyed rage over her love for her son.  Bruce father then abandoned him and  continually accused him of being evil and reprehensible for all the bad things that had ever happened.  Poor Bruce stayed sane by diverting his grief, hurt and anger to the study of science. He got his doctorate in nuclear physics and went to work at a nuclear research facility, where in a heroic effort to rescue a friend, he was caught in the heart of a nuclear explosion. He mutated into seven feet, one thousand pounds of unfettered fury – the most powerful creature to walk the earth (aside from my husband Glenn, of course).

The disfiguring transformation was triggered by the build up of intense feelings and stress. When his anger was physically expressed and released during his Hulk conversion he would then transform back to his normal easy-to-get along with persona.  However, this was only after wreaking havoc around him, scaring the living daylights out of everyone in sight and knocking off a few people who got him PO’d.

The point of moving from the Super Grumpy[3] metaphor to the Incredible Hulk is … we can all EMPATHIZE with the Incredible Hulk because we know that underneath the fuming façade is a good soul.  Unfortunately, it’s harder to identify with a Super Grumpy when he shows up in our meetings, threatening to destroy us, the group process and the quest for learning or resolution of problems in our groups.  We can forget, that there is a real person with real needs and perhaps important issues that need to be addressed before we can continue with our agenda.

Strange as it may seem, the best way to deal with an overly aggressive, ‘in-your-face’ aggressor is to dig deep inside yourself to find empathy for their feelings. This, of course, is very easy to say, and quite another thing to accomplish.

In Part II, we’ll review the options. (Note: It’s MUCH more complicated than saying “I feel your pain, brother!” … I mean, the 1960s were over a long time ago!).

In the meantime, think about the challenging people you’ve encountered.  When they gave voice to their anger and annoyance, how did that affect your meeting?  What did you feel?  What did you do?  What did you wish you had done instead in thinking about it later?

To your success!

Warmly,

Sharon J

Categories
Best Practices Body Language Culture Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Please Pass The Puppy

Up until a couple of years ago, anyone who knew me fairly well, knew that I had a wonderful little mascot, Stewie the Shih Tzu. We’d been hanging out together for 13 years and he accompanied me to many places: to work every day when I was in my home office, on the road whenever I could, to my hairdresser, and he sat on my lap in the dentist office.

What you may not know is that Stewie has participated in a number of marketing research, training and creativity events.

It started when he was a two month old puppy. At that time, I had a facility on Long Island. My partner and I were running a creativity session with a pharma company and it’s agency. There were 16 people sitting around the table for many hours, coming up with new ideas for several categories of products. Since Stewie was still so little, I brought him along.  After getting permission from the group, we set up a make shift puppy playpen in the corner just behind my chair.

Not surprisingly, early in the session Stewie started whining a little, so I picked him up and held him in one hand while I continued conducting with my pen in the other.  [Later one of the participants told me that Stewie’s little head kept bobbing up and down following the pen as it drew invisible lines and circles, mirroring the movements of my improvised baton.  Can you tell this puppy was my child?!  I thought everything he did was adorable.]

This was a fairly typical brainstorming session – the group was charged with identifying areas we wanted to develop, getting spontaneous downloads of ideas, using creative excursions to move away from the problem at hand to make new associations, generating possible ideas from the new input and then doing it all over again.  While much of the time was spent in spontaneous talk mode, there was some head down writing involving focused concentration.

For some people that part is tense.  At one point during a writing exercise, a woman lifted her head, turned to me, arm extended and commanded, “Please pass the puppy”  — which of course I did without a blink.  Stewie continued to travel around the room at various times throughout the day providing comedic and warm fuzzy relief when people needed a break or wanted to lessen stress.

Stewie continued his apprenticeship over the years, listening in while providing licks and entertainment to my clients.  Most of the people I work with were thrilled to have him attend and several actually requested him. Why? Because he brought “love” and innocence into the session. He’s spontaneously silly, engaging in hilarious antics that are entertaining. He cuddled, invited petting and patting, gave licks, asked for what he wanted, and was genuinely and obviously appreciative of any attention given to him.

One of my clients, James, loved to have Stewie along. In addition to just enjoying Stewie’s presence and clowning around, he also relished the opportunity to take the pup “out for a walk” – a euphemism for grabbing a smoke.

On one occasion, we were conducting a series of one-on-ones with MD’s on a set of concepts for a new medication.  It was suburban Philly.  We were interviewing 15 docs per market. After interview #10, James said, “Hey, I have an idea. We pretty much know how we’re doing here. [This was the final of three markets.] What would you think of bringing Stewie into the front room to see what happens.  It would be research on research!”

I asked if he was sure he wanted to take the chance of forfeiting the interview results, and he replied with an enthusiastic “YES!”  So, I greeted the psychiatrist in the waiting room and told him that I had my dog with me.  How did he feel about dogs? How might he feel about allowing the dog into the interview room?  The doctor said it was fine with him.

Imagine the set up. My back is to the mirror.  The doctor is facing the mirror.  I have two tables set up in an L with stacks of materials as well as discarded papers in a pile under the table ready to be shredded.  We start the interview with the purpose of the talk and an introduction of the doctor; medications he currently writes for his patients, etc.

Then we switched to concept exposure.

Stewie started out laying at my feet.  That lasted for about 10 minutes before he started exploring.  The first thing he found was the pile of papers on the floor. Stewie saw an opportunity to earn his keep and started aggressively shredding the paper. Meanwhile the doctor continued to talk as if oblivious to the noise and distraction, while I’m thinking to myself, “oh well, I guess this isn’t going to work.”

I picked up Stewie and got him to settle down on my lap while we progressed in the interview, showing more ideas for the doctor’s feedback. I don’t know what you know about Shih Tzu’s, but because of their short snouts, they have a propensity to snort and snore. In fact Stewie can snore louder than my Grandmother who was queen of sawing wood, honking and whinnying while she slept.

Internally, my virtual eyes were rolling, but I stayed with the process, asking questions, probing, clarifying, moving onto the next set until we finished. Surprisingly, after a couple of giggles of acknowledgement of Stewie’s off key concerto, we got through the entire interview covering all the materials.

As were winding down, I asked the doctor what it was like to have the pup in the room. His answer was very interesting. He said that he’d done interviews before and that even though he knew he was being asked for his honest response, he generally found himself trying to give the answers he imagined the interviewer wanted to hear. But this was different. He allowed himself to be authentic and say what was really on his mind.

In classic interviewer style, I said, “interesting, what might have contributed to the difference in your response.”

He said there were two things. Having the dog in the room gave him the sense that his own playfulness and creativity were encouraged. To him this translated to allowing himself to be relaxed and open. In addition, my accepting of Stewie without punishing his behaviors said that I would be accepting of whatever he had to say. The result was he was comfortable taking the risk of telling me how he really felt about the product concepts.

James, who had been laughing his head off in the backroom, sobered up and took notice. James was in charge of the internal research training program. His company holds a bi-monthly Lunch and Learn event that is offered to all in the research department of his company. The doctor’s reaction was so intriguing, that he actually wrote it up and distributed it to the VP of Research as well as his peers for future consideration.

There is a dynamic relationship between people and animals. Each influences both the physiological and psychological state of the other. In the presence of animals, people seem healthier and happier and actually experience improved health benefits: lower blood pressure, less anxiety and a general sense of feeling good about themselves. In fact, pets can add to longevity. Grieving elderly widows and widowers left with pets survive years longer than their counterparts without pets.

Animals are a natural source of genuine affection. They create an emotionally safe, non-threatening environment that can encourage people to open up. In the presence of friendly pets, people relax and calm down. They forget about their worries, loneliness, sadness, pain and fear. They laugh and feel moments of unselfconscious joy.

Did you know that 20% of American businesses allow their staff to bring companion animals along with them to work?

The value of a cute pup or pet in work situations has been researched. Results of a survey sponsored by The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association indicated positive outcomes as a result of bringing pets to work.

Participants agreed that bringing their pets to work led to:

  • An increased willingness to work longer
  • A decrease in absenteeism
  • Improved relationships with co-workers
  • An environment that fosters creativity
  • Higher productivity

So, do you have a pet that might like to give back? Maybe become an assistant researcher or facilitator?  Just be sure to protect anyone who might have fear of fur and get their permission before introducing your pup.

To learn more interesting tips on making work less like work and encouraging employee engagement click http://www.future-proof-your-career.com

Categories
Best Practices Body Language Culture Health and Wellness Management

Elevate Your Success with Five Simple Steps

People often convince themselves that highly successful individuals who possess a special gift set themselves apart from everyone else. However, the reality is that your ability to have success, however you define it, can be accomplished with a few simple steps.

Personal responsibility for our actions is seldom championed in society these days, and like it or not, we all live with the consequences of the lifestyle choices that we make every day. We can sit in an office staring at a spreadsheet waiting for our situation to improve or make a few changes that will put us on a path to shaping a better future for ourselves and others. The following are five simple steps you can take to elevate your level of success.

1. Challenge Your Habits and Change Your Routine

It is incredibly easy to fall into the comforts offered by habits and routines, those that make our lives feel like a scene from Groundhog Day, in which the alarm wakes us at the same time every day as we hit the snooze button at least once before jumping into the shower. The familiarity of the daily grind, in which grabbing a coffee as you head into the office before performing the same tasks, can be comforting, yet we often wonder why nothing ever changes.

Our education system tends to encourage everyone to learn one correct answer and basically think in the same way. And when it comes to creativity, only a small number of people might be thought of as “creatives,” but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Technology is increasingly replacing laborious and repetitive tasks with automation. Creativity and critical thinking have become essential skills in the 21st century and possess the power to make you stand out from the crowd.

There are countless self-help books that advise you how to create new patterns and habits to help you achieve your goals. However, simply getting off the hamster wheel of life and allowing yourself to mix things up by both thinking and doing things differently is a great place to start, and it will stimulate creative thought.

2. Surround Yourself with People Who Lift You Up

They say that we become like the five people we spend the most time with, and ultimately they have the power to either inspire or drain us, so maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the amount of time that you spend with toxic individuals who only bring you down.

Surround yourself with like-minded souls on a similar journey or, better yet, those who can see the big picture better than you can. They will help you see failure as an opportunity and will certainly increase your odds of achieving your dreams.

Business is 80% people and 20% everything else, and this illustrates the importance of investing your time in getting to know open-minded individuals who enjoy helping turn others’ dreams into reality. What if you surrounded yourself with inspiration?

3. Fuel Your Creativity

If you begin your day reading the news that reminds you of all the negative aspects of our world, followed by looking at social media sites that show snapshots of lives that are edited to look much better than your own, you will never increase your productivity or creativity. I like to start each day thinking of all the things I’m grateful for. It’s hard to have a bad day when you start your day like this. Try it!

Whether they are stuck in a traffic jam or are on a delayed train or airplane, or even doing household chores, highly successful people unleash the power of refueling their creativity during these moments of “dead time” by reading books or listening to podcasts.

Books and podcasts on subjects that stretch your thinking are a fantastic way to stay inspired and learn new tools you can use to resolve problems that are stopping you from reaching your goals. Try having fewer calls with people who pull you down and don’t help you move forward, and instead call people who lift you up, or watch a good TED Talk or listen to podcasts or audiobooks that offer advice and insights from others.

Removing yourself from a routine or familiar surroundings and going for a walk in a direction where you haven’t gone before instead of staring at a screen will help a lot. Highly successful individuals often find that their brains will naturally join the dots when they expose themselves to new ideas, surroundings and experiences.

4. Bring Focus and Clarity to Your Dreams

Bringing focus and clarity to your dreams while working alone in front of a computer in a dimly lit room is good, but is not enough on its own. Do not underestimate the importance of sharing and communicating your vision with others. It will attract the right people to you who will begin to see where you are going and offer ideas to help you get there.

By sharing your passion for a future vision and communicating the message with transparency on how it will be achieved, you will find people who can help you to create a solid path to achieve your goals.

5. Embrace Marginal Gains

When Dave Brailsford became the manager of Great Britain’s professional cycling team, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France. However, he had a simple concept known as “aggregation of marginal gains” that would revolutionize the sport and lead to his team members becoming tournament champions and Olympic gold medal winners.

The philosophy involved improving tiny areas that were traditionally overlooked by 99 percent in the belief that a long list of 1% improvements would be the difference between being champions or losers.

Researching for a pillow that offered the best sleep for cyclists to take to hotels, and teaching riders the best way to wash their hands to avoid infection, were just a few of a long list of improvements that, although they looked tiny, ended up making a massive difference.

Whether you want to lose weight, build a business or achieve any other goal in life, it’s clear that heading straight for the moon with only one step will almost certainly result in failure or demotivation.

Small changes to your daily routine, such as creating a new email signature or changing those boring, stuffy group meetings by asking better questions, could boost your momentum and enthusiasm. All these changes not only deliver long-term improvements but also improve the overall quality of your life.

Will what got you to where you are be enough to take you to the next level? There are entire chapters on how to act in the future in my latest book The Anticipatory Organization. I’ll buy the book, you pay the shipping cost. Click here to order your copy.
Categories
Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness

National Entrepreneurs Day- Taking a Deeper Look into the Brain of an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs are the foundation of our country and society. Unfortunately for the first time in a while, there are fewer businesses starting than are dying. We want to help aspiring entrepreneurs succeed, so in honor of National Entrepreneurs Day on November 20th, we have decided to take a deeper look into the hard wiring of an entrepreneur’s brain.

A question many people wonder is “are entrepreneur’s brains wired differently than an average person’s brain?” Many people have referred to the concept of people using their left and right brain when they are trying to solve a problem. Some studies suggest that the entrepreneur’s brain uses the right side, which is considered the creative side, while others use the left side that is used more for logical thinking.

Why would an entrepreneur approach a situation differently? What makes them solve this problem differently? How did they know to make that connection? Dopamine is a chemical that provides the brain with creativity, and the interest in seeking out to discover and achieve new goals. Dopamine is released into the brain when you make a new connection that can enrich your future or create a new opportunity for you. The difference between an entrepreneur’s brain releasing dopamine and the average brain releasing it is recognition on when and why it was released.

They say an entrepreneur will look at the same type of information as an average person, but will see something very different which allows them to approach life with a completely different view. An entrepreneur has the ability to recognize new opportunities without the doubt; this is due to the recognition of their high active dopamine levels. Once the average brain begins to identify the activity levels of their dopamine systems, they will begin to see an increase in thinking, creating and achieving new things.

From the wheel to the commercial jet, and the taco to the microchip, radical inventions by brilliant minds have shaped the way we live today, along with our future. Since its inauguration in 2010, National Entrepreneur’s Day is an annual event that honors those men and women who have built an empire from absolutely nothing, most of them becoming rather wealthy in the process as well. Supporters of National Entrepreneurs’ Day started a campaign for the holiday official through legislation. It is informally celebrated every year on the third Tuesday in Nov.

Categories
Growth Health and Wellness Management

The Psychology Behind Burnout and Strategies to Beat It

Highly-motivated people have a strong tendency to push themselves to the point of burnout — it makes sense that they would. These individuals aren’t only setting deadlines for goals—they’re going to extraordinary lengths to meet them. However, deadlines aren’t always met easily: life happens, obstacles pop up, and, inevitably, stress creeps in.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel; the job has to get done.”

The deadline-driven professional might say this, and, as predicted, plow through the work, thinking that any other method will only cause delay and more anxiety, possibly resulting in them missing their deadline altogether. Often when we try to plow through these feelings and “get the job done,” the result is not only burnout but depression or prolonged anxiety, along with higher risk of stress-related diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

However, understanding that stress hormones affect our physical ability to work through problems motivates us to deal with the root of the anxiety, first. This is less about solving the dilemma at hand, but instead about identifying what exactly is causing the stress. In other words, it’s an opportunity to invite a third-party mediator, so to speak, within your mind—an “advisor.”

Important Questions to Ask:

This neutral advisor can pose the following vital questions:

  • How, precisely, is this situation causing me stress?”
  • What is within my control?
  • What is not within my control?
  • If the forces beyond my control overtake this situation, what is the worst possible outcome? Is it that bad?
  • Can I handle that worst possible outcome?

Usually, stress begins to loosen its grip on the body, and we can ask the most crucial question: “What’s the most powerful action I can take to create the best possible outcome in this situation?”

The body expresses everything that is registered by the mind.

The thing is: the body expresses everything that is registered by the mind. High-stress situations put the brain on high alert; subsequently, flooding the body with stress hormones that affect one’s ability to process thoughts.

Proactively dealing with these physical symptoms allows the solution to come swiftly and efficiently, as opposed to when we try to force our way through a clouded mind.

Stress is a daily occurrence for many hard-working people. You can feel it in your body. It’s essential to pay attention to physical symptoms and to notice tension or aches in the body, mood, as well as appetite changes.

It is essential, in these moments, to ask questions like: “Why do my muscles hurt? What happened to my mood? What can I do to improve this?” (Often, stretching and snacking can be immediately helpful.)

Additionally, we all have times of the day in which we are most productive. Getting to know your body is the only way to take advantage of situations that bring you energy and avoid those that deplete you.

Stay in Touch with the Body

In conclusion, physical symptoms of stress are an excellent indicator that it’s time to ask questions and identify their source. Handling these physical symptoms is an important aspect of taking care of ourselves, mitigating adverse effects, and increasing energy and clarity; — essentially avoiding burnout altogether.

If you’ve found this article helpful, I highly recommend that you download my 5 Tips for Mastery Under Pressure, which cover the topics of focus, relaxation, dealing with negative self-talk, how to visualize, and how to transform and channel fear.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

Why Asking Better Questions Can Fuel Your Performance

Have you ever looked back at something you did, such as a decision you made or something you said, and wondered why you did it that way? You may feel surprise or regret. It might not even be a big deal, and yet, you spend a lot of your time thinking about it.

Now if it were a big decision that did not work out as intended, you might even beat yourself up about it. Mentally of course. And it might also affect you emotionally. Now don’t get me wrong, reflecting is a good thing. It’s how you reflect that is the issue.

Two questions that get us stuck:

Do you ask yourself one of these questions?

  1. Why did I do it?
  2. What if…?

Both questions can get you stuck in a story you are telling yourself about who you are and why you did something.  We waste so much time looking back and wishing we’d done something different, or looking ahead, worrying about the outcome before we even figure out how to do it.

Looking back with regret and ahead with fear, both get us stuck, wasting time and affecting not only our productivity and performance, but also our emotional, mental and physical health and wellbeing.

What does the mind have to do with it? 

The mind believes what we tell it.

Consider the classic story about two monks walking on the path at dusk, talking about how their journey might get dangerous if they do not make it to town before it is dark. All of a sudden, one of the monks point toward the bend in the road ahead, stops and says, “I think there is an animal there on our path.” The other monk stops and looks and says, “Yes, I see it. It is sitting there waiting for us. Maybe it’s a tiger.” So they jump behind the tree to hide. As they peek out from behind the tree, the animal is still sitting there waiting for them. As the night comes, they are more and more scared, and they stay behind the tree, peeking out from time to time but as it gets dark they can no longer see the road. Eventually, they fall asleep behind the tree from sheer fatigue.

The next morning as the sun rises, the two monks talk about what to do. As they look out from behind the tree, they realized the tiger is still there waiting for them, except the tiger is not a tiger, but a boulder on the side of the road.

What is the change we can make?

Our unconscious mind is our best friend. It protects us from harm and helps us get what we ask for. It will do what we tell it to do and it will try to find the answers we are asking for, often without our help. Even in our sleep, our unconscious mind works on our questions. That is why it is so important to become mindful about how we interact with our unconscious mind.

The mind-gut connection

Have you ever gotten up in the morning feeling a pit in your stomach, but you are not quite sure why? All you know is that a pit in your stomach tends to warn you that something is not quite right or maybe even dangerous.

Some scientists say our mind is in our gut, some say our second brain that is in our gut. Point is – our brain and gut are interconnected, because all the neurotransmitters in our gut send messages to our brain. It is part of our warning system, the one that has kept us alive for centuries, however it is also how we mis out on taking charge of our thoughts. Now we tend to call it our mind because it is the consciousness of mind, rather than just the organ that is the brain.

Our mind is extremely powerful

Our unconscious mind also does not really understand the difference between something happening in real-time or a story being told about what could happen. Now this is actually a good thing if we use that knowledge mindfully. It is how athletes train themselves to break records and it is why visualization can be extremely powerful. It is also how we can bury ourselves in anxiety and fear. It is how movies draw us into the experience that is happening on the screen. And it is how we can create change.

Ask for what you want

So what is not working about the questions I shared?

  1. Why did I do that? Your mind will give you all the reason why you messed up.
  2. What if I do that? Your mind will come up with all the reasons why it might not work, if your question comes with a grain of fear or dash of doubt.

Of course, we have to be aware of the possible dangers and things that can go wrong, but we should use it as information to plan what to do about it if it does not work, rather than fuel stories about why we might fail.

We need mindfulness

Mindfulness helps us ask better questions about we need to focus on to get what we want.

Our mind automatically looks for danger.  In today’s world, we call it “what is not working” or the negative. Studies have shown that 70% of our mind-activity automatically looks for “danger.” It worked great when a tiger was lurking, but that tiger is not a boulder in the office hallway. That tiger has become your boss, your teammates, your clients, your projects, your problems.

Most people go to work every day spending far too much time looking for what is not working and who is not doing what they were supposed to do. The modern-day version of the tiger is stress.

Use AAA

Acknowledge & Accept: This happened and it did not work. Accept how you feel about it, but don’t get sidetracked into telling stories about why it happened. This part is important because this is where we tend to get stuck in wishing it were different… if I had only… then…. Or telling stories like… see that happened because I am …. (usually something nasty we tell ourselves like stupid and not good enough).

Ask: How can I…. What will help me…. What do I need so I can…. And notice what your gut is telling you. Learn to trust the connection between your gut and your mind. Not intuition, but information based in your unconscious wisdom.

Act: Choose the best way forward, even if it is not within your comfort-zone, to get the result you want.

Mindfulness in action means:

  1. Learn to ask questions.
  2. Learn to listen.
  3. Learn to act, not react.

You can use this to work with yourself and with your team. When we can bring more mindfulness into the workplace, we can learn to work better and perform at our best without burning out. We can nourish relationship and fuel a culture where we spend our time working on solutions to problems rather than getting stuck in the problems. A culture that feeds our need to belong, contribute and be successful.

To learn more about how to re-think performance and create a culture of care: jeanettebronee.com

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

Categories
Health and Wellness Marketing Technology

AI Automates Tasks, Not Jobs

I keep reading scare-mongering over how AI is going to make everyone unemployed. Some others say that it will give us a life of leisure. Maybe we should all stop to realize that both are saying the same thing–we are just learning who are optimists vs. pessimists.

But both of these points of view gloss over the real truth–AI doesn’t eliminate very many jobs completely. Yes, if self-driving cars come to pass, Uber drivers and truck drivers are at risk. But no matter how much automation is applied to Quickbooks, we will still need accountants–they just might not be entering and analyzing the transactions anymore.

AI, in general, automates tasks, not whole jobs.

The reason for that is that what we have today is called Narrow AI–it can be better than humans at discrete tasks, such as chess or Go or Jeopardy. It can make predictions within small spheres. But we are nowhere near General AI, where the judgement of a human across many spheres is possible. Humans need to be guiding all automation, especially AI, for the foreseeable future. So, while there will be some jobs that get largely automated away, we will likely still need humans to do parts of those jobs and there will likely be new jobs created we don’t even dream of yet.

In 1790, 90% of the US workforce were farmers. 200 years later, in 1990, less than three percent remained on the farm, yet we didn’t experience 87% unemployment. And that doesn’t even take into account the massive growth in population or the major expansion in the workforce as women joined.

We found other things to do.

No one knows what will happen in our AI future, but you can expect that it won’t be as bad as people fear nor as great as they expect. After all, if I had told you 20 years ago that you would willingly carry around a device 24×7 that allows your boss to call you any time of the day or night and know that you could be reached, you’d have labeled me a nutjob.

But we all carry our cell phones religiously and would fight to keep them if pressed. So, we are often better at seeing the downside of new technology than the upside and we should imagine that AI will probably turn out the same way.

Categories
Growth Health and Wellness Leadership

Are You Ready for Back-to-Work?

How do you prepare for peak performance?

Kids get new pencils and back-packs, maybe even a new lunch-box. How do you prepare for getting back to work after the summer down-time?

When I was a kid I loved the excitement of getting back to school. Maybe because of my new pencils and outfits, but I actually liked the action of being engaged and using my brain. During the summer-break I would miss feeling productive. I know you might wonder what kind of kid is thinking about feeling productive. I did not call it that at the time of course. I think it was more like feeling I did something that other people responded to, learning stuff and showing my teachers that I was getting better and better at what they were teaching me. Reality is that is still what drives us as adults at work but let’s discuss that in another article.

Be a kid again.

Kids don’t have the same dread of “crazy-busy-no-time-to-myself” that adults do. Later when they are teenagers and studying for an exam though, the perfection-performance-mode already sets in. It is that mode, where we think our brain is the key to performance and that we just need to keep going without feeding, fueling or nourishing it, or the body that it is attached to that keeps it working. It is like thinking the computer can work without battery and electricity.

How did we go so wrong?

When did we start thinking of our bodies like a machine that just keeps going until it burns out? We don’t even treat our cars the way we treat our bodies. Maybe it was during the industrial revolution, where humans became less important than machines and we thought to compete we had to be like them? The thing is, we knowthat pushing harder does not make us more productive, and yet that is our solution for getting the work done.

Work less, get more done.

In 1926 Henry Ford introduced the 40-hour work-week. He found that when he reduced the work-day from 10 to 8 hours and the work-week from 6 to 5 day, productivity went UP. And yet most leaders work 10 hour days (or more) and 6 day work-weeks.

Kids in Finland started performing better in school when they had more play-time. They added a 15 minute break after each lesson, and their focus and attention improved. No surprise really, because neuroscience also tells us that we only focus optimally for 45-90 minutes at a time, and then we need 15 minute brain-off time, so that we can reset our nervous-system and re-boot our mental energy, so we can focus optimally again for the next 45-90 minutes.

So getting back to work, take a look at your schedule and make some performance changes. Cut your meetings from 60 minutes to 45 and take the 15 minutes in between for performance self-care.

Work better on food.

I consistently hear that people are not hungry or thirsty all day so they don’t stop to eat or drink water. It is probably not true that you are not hungry or thirsty! You are just not pausing for long enough to pay attention to your body.

Your body needs water and food, just as much as it needs a pause throughout the day. But when you are running on survival-mode your body tries to keep up with you being chased by a tiger (this tiger could be your boss, a deadline or your board of directors). When you are working on survival-mode, your body stops sending you messages of hunger and thirst, because all systems and hormones are on go-go-go, and you don’t get the “memo” that you are hungry until you stop late at night, – and realize you are starving. But by then you are also burned out.

Burnout prevention.

We don’t have to burn out. To avoid this cycle of burn out and recovery as the way we work, we need to bring self-care with us to work. We work better this way. It is how we can achieve peak performance, work better and go home happy with energy to spare.

Learn more about how to integrate burnout prevention into your company culture or your personal work-style find me at  jeanettebronee.com for keynotes, workshops and 1-on-1 coaching.

Photo: Jeremy Lapak via Unsplash

Categories
Growth Health and Wellness Leadership

Do You Have the Guts to be a Great Leader?

Leadership is changing.

Our relationship with work is changing. We want more meaning in our daily lives and that also means more meaning at work. Let’s face it, work is where we spend most of our time and at the end of our lives, work has consumed most of it. We don’t look back and say, “I wish I had worked harder,” but we might look back and say, “I wish I had made a bigger impact.”

Now I am not trying to encourage regret here. My dad, when he was dying, did not realize how many people he had made a difference for. He received letters and emails thanking him for the impact he had made in someone’s life, simply by listing to them, having conversations with them about their hopes and dreams, and encouraging them to see the best in themselves and dare to show it. You know that thing, we think we have to hide. Our vulnerable self, which then turns out to be our golden nugget and what makes us not just a great human being, but also a great leader. Not a weakness, but a strength. Especially as leaders, we tend to think we have to hide our humanity at work.

Let me add here – we knew he was dying for about 6 months, so we spent the time talking about what mattered to him in his life. He reflected and learned about himself even till the end. And I learned so much about making conscious choices by listening to him. I learned to dare live my true convictions and passions and to stand for what is important to me. Even if I would stand alone for awhile. He did, and then people joined him. He was a leader in the 70′, 80′ and 90′ and he passed away in 2001, so you can imagine he was ahead of his time, bringing his humanity with him to work.

Will you stand for something?

Now this is not a tribute to my dad, it is a tribute to leadership with guts. And it is going to take a slightly different turn that you expect I think. I am not going to talk about daring and believing and standing alone and going for it in spite of fear. I am going to talk about, how we take care of ourselves as leaders every day AT work so that we can pay attention, be present and emotionally and mentally available to the people around us.

Stop stressing.

The other side of that could be slow down. But it is not. At least not quite. I do encourage pausing, because that is how we can observe, reflect and then act according to our higher purpose and intentions. Or focus on what matters rather than what is just urgent.

The first step in becoming a conscious leader, a caring leader, a mindful leader, a leader with impact and a culture around her or him that is engaged, committed and healthy… is a healthy leader. We have to come out of survival-mode and work on performance-mode instead.

Most cultures are not practicing healthy habits at work and most are working on survival-mode, waiting for relief around the corner. It is not sustainable to work in that way.

What is important?

What is important for me, is that we can take charge of our health AT work. I had to leave my career to take care of myself. It is simply not fair to ourselves, that we have to choose between our health and our work and that we leave self-care behind, instead of bringing it with us to work.

Will you be the leader who practices good work-habits and leadership self-care AT work? Do you have the guts to take better care of yourself AT work, so that your people can do so too? Do you have the guts to pay attention and listen, so that your people feel that they matter? Do you have the guts to pause and ask, “how are you or what do you think?”

It takes guts to stand for something, to change a culture that is used to pushing forward without taking care of ourselves and include our humanity at work.

To stop the burn-out epidemic we need self-care AT work. Please also read the article “Leaders who lunch are better leaders” too.

Let me give you a few steps to start practicing:

1. Drink water – and drink even more water. Quit the sugary drinks, the coffee with milk and all the stuff you use to keep you “pumped up”. It is not working long-term, it depletes your energy and your health, -and it takes your attention away from what is important because of how the caffein and sugar affects your brain.

2. Get your sleep – 7-8 hours. No discussion. Otherwise you end up looking for sugar and caffein to keep you going. Research now compares lack of sleep with being drunk.

3. Get your 3 meals a day. Make it a time away from the work-mindset. Not only does your body need the fuel (nutrients and calories) to keep going all day, your mind needs the pause to stay focused and engaged all day.

Stay tuned for the next article about how to have a healthy gut and why it matters, not just for leaders, but for anyone who wants to achieve peak performance at work, at home and on the go.

To learn more about leadership self-care and how it can change your culture visit jeanettebronee.com, where you can also learn more about executive health coaching, speaking engagements and company workshops.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

What Emotional Currency Do You Accept?

“Emotional currency is the exchange we engage in when seeking self-satisfaction.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“I was just promoted and received the title of ‘Junior Assistant’ in the PR department. I don’t care if others in the department with my skill set are making $13k more than me. I’m a ‘Junior Assistant’!”

Those were the words of a very jubilant individual that was more satisfied with a title than money. His fulfillment came from the emotional currency he’d received that made him feel complete.

What emotional currency do you accept when seeking to placate your needs and wants? The more you’re aware of how and when emotional currency moves you, the greater the chance you’ll have to control the degree of your acceptance of it.

Emotional currency can come in many forms. It can be in the form of a raise; you have more money and thus, you feel better about yourself due to your new financial status. It can stem from acceptance of you by a group or others; you feel wanted. It’s also born from the elevation of your mental wellbeing as the result of how you see yourself. It can also be a manipulator used against you.

So, why should you be aware of the emotional currency you accept and when you accept it? The answer lies in what you’ll do to obtain it based on the circumstances you’re in. A moment ago, I stated that emotional currency can be a tool of manipulation. That means, when you’re emotionally depressed, you’re more likely to leap at the opportunity to enhance your emotional state of mind; a high state of emotional satisfaction is something that everyone seeks. All of us should know our limits so that we don’t merge into a limitless desire to obtain what we need. Plus, the more attuned you are to your emotional needs, the better you’ll be at making decisions that are beneficial to your long-term wellbeing.

You’ve more than likely heard the statement, ‘get a grip’. That means you should control your desires. Once you raise your awareness about the emotional currency you deal in, and the sources from which it’s refilled, you’ll be more mindful of determining the sources you’ll allow to replenish your needs … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations? 

In a negotiation, value is perceptional. That perception is based on where you are in the moment of the negotiation. If someone attempts to assuage your feelings by telling you how great a negotiator you are, depending on your emotional state of mind, that compliment may be all it takes to take you for all you have.

Be keenly alert when someone begins to heap praise upon you during a negotiation, especially if it seems to appear out of nowhere. More than likely it’s a ploy to enhance your emotional currency. The real thought may belie the exact opposite of the compliment that’s used to mollify you. To keep from being ‘played like a chump’, accept compliments given to you, but don’t let them deter you from your goals of achieving what you want. Be steadfast in your quest and see what becomes of the compliments. Therein will lie the uncovering of their real intent.

Remember, you’re always negotiating! 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

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