Learn to Listen

In the last few posts, reflecting on what I was hearing at the National Speakers Association’s annual convention, I reminded you that knowing what to do and doing it will never guarantee you’ll be as successful as the one telling you what to do. In fact, you might not be successful at all. The simple reason for this is that success is NOT a function of what you DO but a function of WHO YOU ARE! And who are you? That is determined by how you think and operate in the world.

Every truly successful person thinks in a way that is the source of their success. Successful leaders think differently than leaders who are not successful, that’s the bottom line. So if you want to be successful and be a successful leader, learn to think like successful people and successful leaders think.

Here’s another difference between the two:

Successful leaders are great listeners, unsuccessful leaders are not. What brought this message home to me so clearly was some random research I did many years ago. As I would travel by air for business, I made it a point to engage in conversation my seat mate and I would find an opportunity to ask them if they ever had a really great boss. Unfortunately, I didn’t get an affirmative answer very often; but when I did, the next question was always: what made him or her such a great boss. The answer was always the same: he or she was a great listener.

As I asked for further elaboration, the answer would go something like: his/her door was always open, he/she was always willing to make time for me and would always take the time to listen to what was on my mind. I always left feeling known, acknowledged, appreciated and heard.

What was really inspiring about these answers I would get was what almost always followed, some statement like: we all really loved him/her, we would do anything for him/her, and it was a fun place to work because of him/her.

With unsuccessful leaders, you mostly walk away feeling like you’ve been talking to the wall. As a result, people don’t like them, aren’t inspired by them, and won’t do what it takes to support them, which contributes to the lack of success they experience.

How do you become a great listener? There’s a great CD on the subject in our online store; it’s entitled Creating Outrageously Wonderful Relationships, you'll find a link on the navigation bar. If you haven’t listened to it and you can see you’re not a great listener, get your copy today. Or if you have a boss that’s not a great listener, buy him or her a copy and leave it on his/her desk.

Take it Like a Leader; The Gift of Feedback

If you are anything like me, getting feedback is not your favorite.  Oh sure, I can hear all day how great I am at something, but when it comes to hearing what I may not be so great at, or where I need to improve, my defensives will come up every time.  Perhaps it comes from my desire to be perfect at everything.  Society has conditioned those of us who grew up around sports or athletics (for me it was dance) to be the best.  Better than anyone else.  And I can see how I have carried this into other areas in my adult life.  Therefore, if I hear some feedback around something I don’t do great, I immediately equate it to not being the best.  And then the voice of the ego is right there to say “see, you really aren’t as great as you think you are”, since the ego loves to have us give up on things and feel deflated and frustrated.

This way of reacting has often gotten in my way of learning and growing in life.  Have you ever noticed that in yourself?

So several years ago, as I started on this journey of personal development, I decided to take the feedback that I receive as a gift. As much as I could probably go my whole life without hearing the constructive criticism, I realized that this was probably not possible since I really wanted to create some great stuff in my life.  And every time I am willing to fully hear the feedback, I have grown.  Even in that moment when I hear the feedback and I think it’s going to be the end of my career, sure enough, in a few days or weeks, I see how it has actually propelled me forward in ways I would have never been propelled had I not heard the feedback.

Now this certainly doesn’t mean that you need to take all negative feedback to heart.  Sometimes someone’s feedback has nothing to do with you.  But if you hear feedback and you have a reaction to it of some kind, you resist it, become defensive, justify, or feel hurt, chances are it probably belongs to you and it’s something to look at. 

The decision to take all feedback as a gift can open up tremendous growth for you in your life.  And if you want to really step this up a notch and get good at receiving feedback, go out and ask for it.  Ask the people in your life what they see in you.  Ask them for what they see that you do great, as well as ways they could see you improve.  Ask your children “what kind of parent am I?”.  Ask your employees “what kind of boss am I?”. Ask your spouse and your closest friends.  You will be amazed at what you hear.  And the response you always give after asking for people’s feedback is “Thank you”.  No responding, explaining, or questioning…simply “Thank You”. 

Leadership Dilemma – Feeling Stuck?

What’s Holding You Back?

Yesterday, I heard someone say something very profound – “We are the ‘lid’ on what’s possible for others.”  

This was in the context of inviting someone to do something, presenting an opportunity to them.  People often hold back from asking others to do things because they have thoughts, stories or judgments about someone else – what they might want to do, what they “should” do, what they won’t do etc. This influences what we invite them to do, what possibilities we present to them, what opportunities we don’t even give them a chance to say yes or no to. 

So, my questions for you is:

• What’s holding you back?  

• Where are you stuck? 

• Are you putting a “lid” on yourself about what’s possible for you, what opportunities you might want to try?  

• What stories, misperceptions, negative thoughts or judgments do you have about yourself that holds you back?

If you ask yourself these questions, you’ll see that many of your answers are fear based.  Fear gets its power from the future.  People are often fearful about outcomes.  Doubt and uncertainty take hold and people get stuck.  They put a “lid” on themselves and their opportunities.  This can become a dilemma for leaders.

Getting Unstuck

• Get into action in the present moment (remember fear is future based, it can’t exist in the present moment).  Take a deep breath and begin. Just do it!

• Let go of your attachment to the outcome.  Be open to the possibility of a different or better outcome.  Trust the outcome will be in your best interest.

• When doubt or uncertainties hold you back, this negative energy projects in your thoughts, words and actions.  Ask yourself what would a confident, doubt free day look like for you.  Be willing to see things differently.

• Visualize you are holding a fist full of helium balloons.  Written on each one is the name of one of your fears, worries or doubts. Now see yourself letting go of the balloons, one by one, thus releasing each of these things that are keeping you stuck and holding you back from being the great leader you are meant to be!  

Another Key to Effectiveness

Last week I suggested that if you’re like the vast majority of people, when the alarm goes off, you hop out of bed, take a shower, get dressed, hopefully eat a decent breakfast and you’re off to work. I further suggested that while that approach is pretty normal, it isn’t useful because you haven’t appropriately prepared yourself for the challenges of the day and then you wonder why, at the end of the day, you feel so stressed out and exhausted.

Do the research and find out for yourself. Take the time to eat a high protein breakfast. This will prepare your central nervous system to be as effective as possible as you deal with the events of the day. Otherwise, you’ll just race through your day, hardly noticing how the events of the day drain you emotionally and physically, and you’ll wonder why you end up going home stressed out and exhausted.

As I keep saying, you were meant to have an amazing life and we promoters of the Unshackled Leadership philosophy, www.UnshackledLeadership.com, are committed to supporting you in that. But you have to manage yourself if you’re going to experience that and mostly we don’t. I invite you to take a lot more responsibility for how life occurs for you and the ideas here will be a good start.

The Fear of Public Speaking

They say that the number one fear we have as human beings is the fear of public speaking and that the number two fear is the fear of death. Now, isn’t that interesting? In other words, people would sooner die than speak publicly. This astounds me, but when I think about it, I can totally understand it. When I started out as a public speaker, I too was terrified. It took every ounce of courage I could muster up for me to step in front of a group and speak about a subject that I was passionate about. And there were times in the beginning that I felt like I was going to die before stepping in front of a group. 

Fortunately, not all of us have to speak in front of groups. Often time, we think that opportunity is reserved for seminar leaders, lawyers, actors, politicians, or teachers.  And  to a large degree, this is true. However, when I look at my life before I was a public speaker, there were numerous opportunities that I had to speak in front of people!  And when I examine those times of my life, the fear was still there!

I’m sure you can relate to times that you had to give a presentation at work, maybe you had to speak to your employees, and times you had to make phone calls to strangers, or ask someone out on a date.  Maybe you had to speak at a school function for your children, or you wanted to make new friends and invite some people over for dinner.  Many people, like me, feel anxious when we are put in these situations.  And physically we feel the anxiety.  We get sweaty, our stomach turns to butterflies, we get tired, or sick.  All of these symptoms are just our body’s way of telling us we are venturing into unknown territory.  We don’t know what may happen, so we get anxious.

Well I am not here to give you the magic tools to make the fear go away.  But in the following article series I am here to show you that there are some strategies, that when applied, can lessen the emotional, mental and physical impact that the fear has on you.  These steps can help lessen the stress created when having to speak to people and can help you become a confident speaker, whether you want to become the next Tony Robbins or you just want to be able to talk to people with confidence and ease.

Stay tuned in the next post where I will cover the 10 tips to ease the stress of speaking to people.