Dealing with Fear

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. “

- Mark Twain

Everybody has fear.  This is something we have to accept.  Your fears may be different from mine but in reality we have all been afraid of something at some point or another.  Fear can be paralyzing.  It can prevent us from achieving inner harmony and limits our judgment and our ability to think clearly and rationally.

The people in this world who we admire the most are the ones who face their fears.  Think about any notable leader in the history of the world.  What words come to mind?  Bravery, courage, struggle and strength are probably the words you think of.  All of these words deal with overcoming obstacles, fears and adversity.  You have fears.  Accept it.  Face it.  Move on.

Fears limit.  They restrict us and prevent us from achieving great things.  They stop us from inspiring, leading and discovering what we are capable of.

What defines us is how we deal with fear and how we overcome adversity.   Most of our fears stem from the unknown and from the future.  Well here’s a bit of information for you.  The future is coming whether you’re ready for it or not!  You can’t stop the movement of time.  Accept this.  What you have power over is how you prepare yourself and how you are going to face whatever obstacles come your way.  Be strong! You have what it takes.  Do not forget this!

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.“

-Henry David Thoreau

Fear is natural.  It was given to man as a tool for survival, as a means of recognizing danger.  Yet there is a huge difference between surviving and living!  You have the ability to truly live.  You have the choice.  Do you want to survive or do you want to live?  In the end do you want to look back on life with regrets or with a smile?  Face your fears or they will conquer you.  Believe that you can do it, or you will not be able to.  If you want to lead and to inspire others it is your responsibility to be able to face fear.  How can you teach others to do it if you can’t yourself?

Leadership Development- Three Factors to Keep in Mind

In my last blog post I talked about the different levels of leadership and what each role requires. As you Transition up the ladder of the Leadership Evolution, you will need to shift your focus and re-evaluate your approach to leading. Individuals who understand what needs to be changed at each level will have the greatest level of success. Three factors to take in to consideration when transitioning are:

Values: It is always essential to focus your energy and prioritize the things you value most. What is important to you?

Time: Remember to always designate your time to the people and tasks that are decisive in reaching your immediate objectives. What is the best use of your time? If there are people on your staff that are fit to do what you’re working on, perhaps your time could be better spent on something else.

Capabilities: Developing and using the appropriate skill sets will allow you to work at an optimal level and move up the Leadership Evolution ladder. Constantly strive to improve. If you’re proficient in one area, find your skill that’s out of your comfort zone and work on developing that.

Transitioning from Manager to Leader

“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” – Stephen R. Covey

Transitioning leadership roles is a step by step process. You can’t be a visionary leader if you don’t even have the ability to manage yourself. It takes time, perseverance, and an understanding that different leadership roles will require different characteristics from you (keyword- adaptability). Listed below is my Leadership Evolution chart. This will help to give you an understanding what direction leaders should head in. (Start at the bottom and move up)

Defining Mission, Vision, and Strategic Direction: Time for big picture leadership. Place you main focus on your vision of the company. Pick the three biggest goals and strive to fulfill the objectives.

Managing the Organization: It is now time to think strategically. The key to leading the organization as a whole is communicating your ideas and objectives with clarity and precision.

Managing Tasks/Function: Place your focus in the operational framework of your organization. You must act quickly and decisively, always be flexible and innovative in your approaches.

Managing Others: Adopt the role of coach. Focus on improving employee relations by assembling and engaging the group, managing conflict, and balancing diverse perspectives/values.

Managing Self: Directing your team begins with directing yourself. Assume a competency focus. Emphasize essential leadership qualities in yourself, including behaving with integrity, responding to challenges, and acquiring new skill sets.

Let Go Of The Lever!

There is an important distinction between those who are in a management position and those who fulfill a leadership role. Make no mistake—just because your tag says “manager” does not make you a leader. What’s the difference? Leaders let go of the lever.

When a people first enter a leadership position, their first instinct is usually to try to get everyone to do the job exactly as they used to do. After all, the reason why they are in a leadership position is because their methods were so successful. They think that if they can get others to do things exactly the same way they used to, everything should be perfect.

This is known as holding the lever. It’s also known as micromanaging. Most employees despise it and it turns potentially good leaders into the dreaded boss or manager that no one wants to work for.

Managers are people who budget, coordinate, control, and direct. Leaders inspire, persuade, motivate, coach, teach, and relate. Understand the difference between making people do something and getting them to want to do it. It is the fundamental concept behind letting go of the lever.

More to come later…

Unstoppable

“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” – Robert Schuller

One thing I like to remind myself of is that every challenge I have ever faced I have made it through. It might have been hard, I might have been scared, or maybe I felt like there was no way I could get through it. But the fact that I’m here today is proof that nothing has ever truly stopped me. I find a substantial amount of power in that statement. And the great thing is, if you still wake up in the morning and have the passion and desire to go out and do something— you are unstoppable too.

Mistakes

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent dong nothing.” -George Bernard Shaw

It is not the mistakes that we make but how we deal with them that defines us.  Nobody is perfect.  Everyone makes mistakes at some point or another.  It is unavoidable.  As people we need to figure out healthy and positive ways to cope with the mistakes and shortcomings we will likely face in our everyday lives.

Although our typical reaction to making mistakes is to not only try and avoid them but to cover them up, we need to be aware that this is counterproductive.  Use your mistakes.  Embrace them.  Learn from them.  The true leader stands tall and faces their mistakes head on.  The mark of a truly respectable and successful individual is the ability to accept responsibility for their actions and to take self-corrective approaches to dealing with failure in the future.

Furthermore, for those in leadership positions the ability to forgive others for their mistakes is a mark of a truly humble person.  Showing forgiveness for those that show sincere honesty and strong character is divine behavior.  By forgiving others and admitting your own mistakes you earn respect and this is the key goal to being a successful leader.  The best leaders are those that inspire and this is the surest way to doing so.

So what are the lessons we can take away from this discussion?  First and foremost understand than nobody is perfect.  Mistakes are part of life.  Second, understand the power of truth and the importance of forgiveness.  Both of these points are important to understand.

How Veterans Can Acclimatize to the Civilian Environment

Today I’m going to take a break from my Power Tools and talk about a matter that’s very important to me: those in service.

Many people are returning from their service overseas and are finding it difficult to adapt to life back home.

The key to success, as a veteran, in finding your feet when you return to the civilian environment is to understand yourself: who you are, what you value, where you can improve yourself.

There are some simple tests you can take to establish your psychological preferences. Myers Briggs, DiSC, Insights Discovery, and Strength Finder are four examples of well-known programs you can follow. It is also worthwhile engaging a professional to coach you through this process.

The testing will determine your propensity for certain professions and careers and help you plot your path through further education and job hunting.

Recently I analyzed a similar test taken by a group of young people looking for guidance in career choices and higher education. 97 percent of the near 1,300 people found the test results were accurate, and 94 percent found the test to be valuable in helping them decide on what career to embark on. I feel strongly that it is the best first step to take when you return from service.

Sometimes returning home from the combat zone can be an even bigger culture shock than entering it in the first place. That is why it is so important to spend the crucial early months working on a process of self-discovery. This is the best way to hit the ground running when it comes to acclimatizing to the civilian environment.

Power Tool 8: Take Care of Your Body, You Only Get One Shot

I used to avoid talking about fitness levels for fear of offending one person. I don’t anymore! We have one shot, one body, and if we lose it we have lost it all. The human body does not do neutral: it is either dying, decomposing, or decaying; or it is rebuilding, repairing, and rejuvenating, period.

We can work on and develop all the other aspects of our lives: education, career, finances, relationships, and mental/spiritual wellbeing, but it is all in vain if you lose your health. What a shame that is, if not for you, then for the many people out there who are depending and relying on you. They deserve the very best that you have to give. It all starts with good health.

Here are some suggestions for better long-term health:

Cardio Exercise: Find something that you like to do and do it. The biggest reason exercise programs fail is that the program is designed around something you don’t like doing. If you hate to run and your program is running, you have a problem! The key here is to move the body and get the heart rate up for an extended period of time. I recommend 30 minutes.

Weight bearing exercise: Lean muscle tissue is your best friend. It is the only system in the body that actually burns and consumes fat. You don’t have to look like Arnold but the benefits of resistance training are outstanding. Work every muscle group in your body at least twice a week. For the females, resistance training will stall and often replace bone loss.

Food and diet: Just like everything else, if it becomes a drag and you are miserable it is not going to work. Meet yourself halfway, kick out half of the things that are known to be bad for you, but leave room for the things that you enjoy. I am big on whole foods, raw fruit, and veggies. Drink plenty of clean water. If you are not taking a good vitamin and mineral supplement please start, you feel the difference immediately. With the condition of our environment and food supply, vitamin supplementation is a must.

Rest: One of the biggest, but less recognized, issues I see when it comes to good health is the lack of quality sound sleep. Be sure to let your body rejuvenate through proper sleep habits. The amount needed varies from person to person, but if you need more, get it. Sleep or lack of it impacts mental clarity and energy more than most of us realize. Remember it is when you sleep that the body repairs itself, so get the sleep you need.

Stress: Last but not least, we live in an ever-changing fast paced world. In my view, the inability to handle or reduce stress is behind most of our nation’s health issues. Deal within your circle of influence if you can do something about it do it, if not, let it go.  Remember, “don’t sweat the small stuff, it is all small stuff.”

These are five simple things you can do to make a lasting positive difference in how you look and feel, and insure better long-term health.

Power Tool 7:Act now like the person who you want to become; don’t wait for someday!

We all have that image of who we really are and the potential of what or who it is that we can become. The problem is we place little obstacles in our way that keep postponing our arrival as the new and better us:

• Someday, If I just had that degree
• Someday, If I just had another degree
• Someday, when the finances are better
• Someday, when I get promoted
• Someday, when the children are raised
• Someday, when I get that perfect job
• Someday, when I get in shape

It goes on endlessly. We impose barriers on ourselves that prevent us from arriving where we want to be. Stop and reflect for a second. Someday never comes! Act right now like the person you want to be and don’t make excuses or look back, just do it.

If you want to be the best leader in the organization, then be that leader. If you want to be the best coach, then be the best coach. If you want to be the best parent, then be the best parent. For over two thousand years it has been said, “What we think about we become.” I am a firm advocate of this philosophy. So the question is: when it comes to who you are, what are you thinking about?

Every hour, every day, and every week that we do not take the action, there is more sand running out in the hourglass. Life is way too short to delay getting to where you want to be.

To get started now I suggest the following:

1. Create the perfect picture of the person you want to be (visual specifics—you can describe these in writing or draw them)
2. Employ the behaviors, characteristics, and traits now
3. Associate with people who embody and represent what you are striving to achieve.

Act now like the person you want to become, let the fears and barriers of someday go, and experience the outcome of acting today.

Power Tool 6: Be an inspired motivator

Motivate yourself and those around you. It is contagious!

As I go around the country, the two questions people ask me most frequently are: “how do I find purpose?” and “how do I motivate those who report to me?”

When I ask participants what they would like to take away as a result of their time spent in my workshops, about 75 percent say they need tools to help them motivate others.

The interesting part is they usually focus on the employee that has been around several years and is kicked out of gear. We used to call this the seven-year itch. How do we re-start the fire? How do we get this individual back on track?

Ask yourself what is the number one motivator for the American workforce? The first response I usually get is money, then time off, advancement, or promotion. Ask fifteen people and you will get fifteen different motivators.

The number one motivator is often reported to be public recognition. You let the employee know they have done an outstanding job in front of their peers, and there you have it, they are motivated. Wrong! Having spent years studying psychological preference and human behavior I have begun to think differently.

What if the individual you publicly recognize is introverted and you have just recognized them in front of their peers? You may have just put them in a very uncomfortable position.

Today when asked how they motivate others I have to ask them without hesitation: “how motivated are you?” Once we understand that it all starts with us and how motivated we are, then we can start motivating others.

Keys for an inspired motivator:

1. Understand your needs
2. Understand the needs of others
3. Set clear expectations – people around you need to know the direction
4. Coach and mentor – both formally and informally
5. Provide ongoing feedback – directly and indirectly

Look for their best, expect the best, and provide your best