Eva's Business Leadership Blog
For Women in Business who want to take Scary Big Risks and anyone who wants to be a better Leader this afternoon
Speaking at TEDx Creative Coast 2014 was a terrifically fun experience. Even better was listening to the other fantastic speakers. My TEDx topic was the always-daunting and mysterious “How To Stop Time”. Watch the video to learn how!
My TEDx Talk starts with Drew’s awesome introduction at minute 2:54:13. Watch us all on livestream.com. I’ll post my individual video as soon as the video guys have it ready. Enjoy and please tell me if you like it.
You’ve heard this advice before but we can’t repeat it often enough. You are welcome to make casual friends; you are welcome to make friends casually, almost by happenstance.
Make an enemy, or allow the person to go on thinking she is your enemy, only after careful deliberation. After careful, deliberate thought, after thinking through what happened and all that could happen.
Make or keep an enemy only after seeing clearly that having that person as your enemy will get you only your good, and will never and can never harm you, your career, those you love and serve, or your mission.
How likely is that?
I’ve had so many coaching clients ask me what self-esteem is. Instead of the dictionary definition, I gave them one from my own experience: “you will esteem yourself when you act consistently in a way that you and other persons of quality esteem.” I think I got pretty close.
I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about plans – good plans, bad plans, failed plans. What do you think of this definition of self-esteem? “You will esteem yourself when you have successfully weathered and gotten smarter after the failure of a good number of really fine plans.”
Seems like that one fits the current atmosphere well. What do you think?
Scanning Hulu.com I saw the movie title Truth or Consequences fly by. It reminds me that there is only ever the truth about something or the consequences.
Does this sound familiar?
The truth is “I could’ve been friendlier with the new employee just now, could have asked about her move here” because the consequence weeks later will be “It’s no wonder she never warmed up to me. Now she thinks I slight her. I’m at the bottom of her list.”
The truth is “One day I’ll have hurt my health with all this stress and lousy eating” because the consequence is “I sure hope the doctor can help me. The last one couldn’t. Gosh, I better not lose my job ever – – I need the insurance for all these doctor visits.”
Does this sound familiar?
The truth is “I have to find more clients. Since I hate cold calling, I better work my network today to get a warm introduction to the buyer at Acme Corporation” because the consequence is “I procrastinated too much. I was too anxious, I didn’t get coaching, and now I’m getting fired.”
There’s only ever the truth or the consequences.
Do you agree? Please comment and tell me your opinion.
I was watching a movie about gymnasts. The coach said, “We take risks in gymnastics, but only calculated risks. We obey the rules, the rules about training and discipline. Only by obeying the rules can we calculate and choose our risks.”
We take calculated risks according to ranking systems, and only by obeying the systems can we calculate the risks. Selling is not a seat-of-the-pants activity, nor a do-it-differently-every-time activity.
Selling is a process and procedure with systems. Follow the system, judge the results, decide what to change. It’s some risk, but it’s more of a calculation.
Do you agree?
I like this morning’s quote about what’s easy. I like this one even better: “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.”
That’s right. What we do isn’t easy. Leadership isn’t easy. Scary big risks aren’t easy. But isn’t that one of the reasons we do it? Not only because it challenges us, but because we honestly believe there is a special talent in us to do this hard thing.
We want to see the thing we do well brought out of us. We want to see it in action. We want to rise up with it, and we want to win. It isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it.
Right?
This morning I wrote that I don’t believe in willpower, and I talked about how I form new habits. Here’s more:
Form new habits however works for you. Rewards don’t work for me, so if they don’t work for you, don’t think you are broken or weak.
One thing that does help me form new habits is to get more outside myself and get my thoughts off myself. If I spend more time volunteering or cooking for my husband or writing a letter (yes, we write real letters. It’s uplifting. Try it.) I feel so doggone good, so newly plugged into life, more relaxed, more able, that I find it easier for the rest of that day to practice the new habit’s baby steps.
What helps you form and keep new habits? Please comment and tell us! So many tips and techniques our there – what’s your favorite for forming new habits?
I don’t believe in willpower. Either I don’t believe in it, or mine’s just too tiny to believe in.
What I do believe in is prayer. And I believe that only new habits drive out old ones. New habits are formed baby step by baby step, and the smaller the first baby steps – micro-steps are best – the easier the baby steps are to repeat. Repeated baby steps build to a new habit, and the easier the new habit is to repeat.
It’s also critical to search out and list the barriers and pitfalls that will appear around you and doom the new habit to failure. List the barriers in advance. Solve them in advance. Make the solutions part of your baby steps.
When it comes to forming new habits, “barrier busting” and “baby step power” are what I believe in.
Do you believe in willpower? Or perhaps you believe in the power of habits?
I’ve proven over and over again that my new habit is only as permanent as my solution to the barriers that were preventing me in the first place. Do you agree with that?
Have you ever worked so hard, tried so hard that you were dizzy with fatigue? And kept working until you were even more tired? So tired you broke out in silliness?
I’ve done that a few times, working on proposals. But there was something I was headed for, a prize I was seeking. Have you ever been pumped up with knowing that you were in the midst of doing your very best work? That was the prize I was seeking; I have felt it several times in my life – lifted up, buoyed up, lifting, flying, knowing that my work was receiving the very best I had. The work might not please everyone, there might be plenty of comments in red ink, but it was my very best work.
I hope to be lifted up many times when writing to you, buoyed up, doing my best work. I hope you are that way sometimes too.
Are you familiar with this saying? In movie-making, when a scene’s been shot and it’s good, but some minor detail is off that can be fixed later in editing, the director says “Cut and print! We’ll fix that in post-production” meaning it’ll be fixed in editing. “We’ll fix it in post” is the director’s second chance to get just one or two last details done. For now, everyone gets to celebrate the 99+% that’s really good. And really done.
It is so important to be able to recognize when 99+% is done and you can say “Cut and print! We’ll fix the rest in post” knowing that the work’s done and moments away from being ready to publish or put in the envelope. You got it finished! You can say out loud, “We’ll fix the rest in post.”
Now, take a breather, have a coffee, go home and celebrate. Celebrate that you’re done. Come in tomorrow and fix the rest in post.
I’ve said “We’ll fix the rest in post” a hundred times and felt great every time. Do you think it would work for you?