A SIMPLE, YET POWERFUL LEADERSHIP TOOL – THE PAUSE

How many times have you heard someone say, “Think before you speak!” Many mothers handed out this sage advice as we were growing up!

How many times would a pause before you speak have changed the outcome of a conversation, a situation or even a relationship?  Have you ever blurted out something while you were in a bad mood and regretted it later?  The tendency to speak without thinking comes out in many ways –sarcasm, correcting, putdowns, one-upping, or just unnecessary or mean statements.  It often happens when you’re in a reactive state of mind, often when stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or frustrated. When you have any doubt if you should say something, ask yourself if the comment will add to the conversation and if it will enhance or harm the relationship.

This strategy is short and sweet.  Your mind is very quick so don’t worry that you will look like you’ve nodded off in the conversation!  However, don’t pause so long that you come off indecisive, confused or lost.  A pause lets you “get” what the person has said and lets you think about your words before they come rushing out. It’s often a signal to the other person that you heard what they said and are thinking about it. A pause also helps you not jump in and start talking before the person has completed what they want to say. Or it can be a way to transition to another topic, to help people clear their mind and focus.  Many public speaking tips include a pause as a way to get the audience’s attention and to add impact to something you just said. This is true in any conversation as well!

Pauses can be used in other ways to impress people and dial up your leadership presence.  When a successful person enters a room, you know it.  When entering a room for a meeting, don’t sneak in and out of the room.  A pause non- verbally announces your presence.  It can be more courteous than rushing in to someone else’s meeting or presentation.  A pause gives you a chance to size up the situation, gives you the opportunity to look others in the eye and get what’s going on with them, rather than just focusing on yourself. 

So, leaders, my challenge for you this week is to take time to pause.  People won’t wonder what you’re doing.  They will think there’s something that sets you apart from others, an aura of confidence AND they will pay attention, follow your lead.  Try it on.

10 Tips to Ease the Fear of Public Speaking, part 3

This is the conclusion to our series The Fear of Public Speaking.  I hope you have found these tools useful and are noticing a difference in your stress level when it comes to speaking.  Here are the final tips..

5) Dress for Success.  Appearance matters.  Often times we underestimate the impact of how we look.  Feeling great about how you look gives you that extra edge to be able to speak to people with confidence.  So when you have to speak to someone, put on your favorite outfit, iron your clothes, shine your shoes, and hopefully it will be a good hair day!!!

6) Carry a special object or personal item.  For at least the first 8 years that I was a professional speaker, I always carried this little green stone in my pocket.  This stone symbolized all the hard work I had gone through, all the love I had for what I was speaking about, and all the support I had gotten from people in my life.  It gave me courage.  I never spoke in public without that stone.  I highly recommend that you find something that works for you.  Something you can hold on to, or just know that it’s there to keep you in your heart and calm.

7) Visualize what you want.  After 15 years of being a speaker I still use this tool.  I always visualize how I want a presentation to go.  Not only that, but I visualize how I want a conversation with my husband to go, or with my kids.  I visualize how I want a difficult phone call to go, or a meeting with a potential client to go.  This is a powerful tool that actually helps to generate the results you want.  It doesn’t even take very long.  5 minutes can help transform your focus and energy.

8) Give yourself a break. The most important thing to remember is that we are all in a learning process.   There are no rights or wrongs, no good or bad.  We are just who we are, perfect in our own way.  Giving yourself a break is the most important message I could leave you with.  If it doesn’t work out perfectly, then try again.  The word “mistake” is actually a term from archery and it means “missed the mark”.  Often times we make mistakes and we beat ourselves up.  If you can view your mistakes as simply “missing the mark”, and chose to re-aim and shoot again, you’ll find your life working better and easier.

9) Celebrate yourself.  One of the hardest things for us to do as human being is to celebrate our accomplishments.  It is vital that you learn how to do this for yourself, the big stuff and the little stuff.  This creates energy on the subconscious level and sends a message out to the Universe that says, “Send me more good stuff”.  So the next time you take a risk and public speak, whether it’s a big function or one on one, congratulate yourself.  Tell yourself “way to go me”.  Often times we look to others to give us this kind of attention.  But did you ever get a compliment and you brushed it off?  This is usually because we negated the statement in our minds.  Celebrating yourself opens us up to the opportunity to take in others compliments much easier, because we are already giving it to ourselves.

10) Cultivate an attitude of gratitude.  As with celebrating yourself, being grateful attracts more of it into your life.  Even if the situation doesn’t turn out exactly the way we would like it to, be thankful about the opportunity at hand to continue to grow and learn about you.

This concludes our series.  So go hunt down some opportunities to speak, whether in a group or to another person.  Exercise the muscles that you have developed in these articles.  Practice makes perfect, so go try it on and see how it fits for you. 

10 Tips to Ease the Fear of Public Speaking, part 2

As I mentioned last week in the introduction to this series, I don’t have the magic key that is going to take away your fear of speaking to people. But if applied, the following tips can certainly ease the mental, emotional, and physical stress that grips you when you have to speak in front of a group or even have a difficult one on one conversation.

1) Thoughts become our reality. Most of the time what keeps up from speaking up in any situation is our negative self talk. We say things to ourselves such as “I can’t do this”, “I’ll look stupid”, “They won’t like me”, or “I’m going to make a mistake”. These thoughts are not the truth, although we’re very good at convincing ourselves that they are the truth. This keeps us from taking action in life and creates a ton of stress for us.

Becoming aware of the negative thoughts and transforming them is the key to having a life of freedom and confidence. Consciously changing those thoughts to ones like “I know I can do this”, “It doesn’t have to be perfect, I am enough”, “I have a lot to offer”, and “I can handle this”, will help fuel you to take action. It’s really simple, but not easy. If you started to consciously think these positive thoughts instead of the negative ones, in other words begin listening more to your higher consciousness vs. the voice of the ego, you’ll find yourself taking more of the actions that you know are necessary in your life.

2) Decide that you matter. Often times we don’t feel that what we have to say matters. We discount our opinions and look up to others to take the lead. Then we feel frustrated, especially when someone else says what we wanted to say. The truth is that we all have a part to play in this life. When we hide out and just go along, we give other people permission to do the same and eventually we have many people not stepping up in life. When this happens, nothing gets created and growth is stifled. When we each decide that we matter and that what we see and feel matters, and we take action on that, we create a different life, not only for ourselves but for everyone around us. You see something that no one else can see. You have a unique perspective. It’s an important perspective. It’s not the whole picture, but it’s a vital piece. Knowing that about yourself may give you the confidence to speak up more often.

3) Remember to breath. Deep breathing can actually lessen the stress you may be feeling both mentally and physically. Right before you have to speak, focusing on your breath transfers your attention to something other than what you are nervous about.

4) Have a personal motivational statement. Develop a short, easy to remember statement that you can say to yourself when you are nervous about something you have to say. Mine is “I am a magnetic, expressive, decisive and real woman”. This statement is something you can rely on to get you through a tough situation. And just like breathing, it gives you something to focus on other than your nervousness and negative self talk.

Stay tuned for the next 6 tips.

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!  

The Challenge of Building a Team

Given I am absolutely sure you understand the importance of teamwork at work, do you often find yourself wondering why team building is such a struggle and why you frequently find yourself frustrated in your desire to provide the leadership necessary to create an effective work team? Well, the answer is actually somewhat simple although when you read the rest of this, you might just want to throw up your hands and give up. But let’s see.

To get to the bottom of the issue, you must first understand that human beings mostly live under the domination of their ego. For those of you who are regular readers, this will not come as a great surprise. But exactly what does that mean? The ego voice tells us lots of disempowering things, but none is as bad as what the ego tells us about us. Given the reality that the ego is not our friend, what it tells us is: we are not good enough, we are not lovable, and we are not worthy.

While none of that is the truth about us, the really bad part is that we listen to the voice of the ego and we believe that what it says is “the truth.”

So let’s see why this creates such a challenge in creating an effective work team. Team member A wants to have a conversation with team member B, maybe about something that isn’t working, or working as well as it could, or could be improved, or about anything which involves the effectiveness of B. With all good intentions, A approaches B to have this discussion. But the moment A starts to focus on anything that involves the behavior of B, B immediately becomes defensive, starts to justify or defend, and the conversation goes south. You remember all the times this has happened?

Because B, without realizing this at all, is already questioning whether or not he is good enough, worthy and lovable, and mostly thinking he is not, he tends to listen either that he is being criticized, or that he is being lectured to, or that he is being made wrong, or that he is being judged, or all of the above. How would you listen if you thought that? And perhaps you do. Under these circumstances, it’s almost impossible to have a friendly, helpful conversation with a team member and most conversations are either avoided or end up in an argument.

Is there a solution? Not one that I have ever seen work consistently and well. But here’s a place to start. If you understand this phenomenon, it is incumbent on you to approach your team members with lots of compassion and understanding. You have to go out of your way to have whoever you are speaking to understand that you are not being critical or judgmental or making him wrong. You have to choose your words carefully, stay in your heart, and do whatever it takes to have the conversation turn out well. You have to be prepared to apologize if you say something that offends and allow the other to have whatever feelings they have without making them wrong. But just the awareness of what’s going on should help as you deal with this ongoing challenge.