What to Say When You Talk to Your Self! Part 3

Part Three- Self-Talk

     

       Self-talk is a practical way to live our lives by an active intent rather than a passive acceptance, according to Dr. Helmstetter. The beauty of self-talk is that it paints a new internal picture of ourselves as we would most like it to be… And that’s a good thing. Wouldn’t life would be so much better if we can get our self-talk to work for us instead of against us?

            There are different levels of self-talk. The most frequently used self-talk is negative acceptance. Basically, we say something negative about ourselves and then just blindly accept it as truth, whether it is or not. This kind of self-talk of negative acceptance lands us all the way down on the bottom at level one.

            Level two isn’t much better than level one. Level two is recognition and a need for change. We can recognize this level through such statements as: “I need to… I should… I ought to…” On the surface level, level two doesn’t look so bad, but here’s the problem with it. Level two starts off on the right foot with recognizing an areas that needs improvement, but where it falls down on the job is that it doesn’t offer a solution. Thus, it subconsciously becomes, “I wish I could… but I can’t…” So, instead of giving birth to accomplishment and what’s possible it creates guilt and acceptance of our own self-imagined inadequacies. This is a bad thing. So, let’s try not to do this one, okay?

            Next is level three of self-talk. Now, we’re getting somewhere. This is the first level of self-talk that actually works for us instead of against us, according to Dr. Helmstetter. Level three of self-talk is characterized by things like, “I never…” or “I no longer…” In level three we’re rephrasing old negatives and putting them behind us as we start in a new better direction. For example, if we’re smokers who want to quit, our lives will eventually change if we continuously and strongly say to ourselves, “I no longer smoke!”

            And the great thing is that it doesn’t even have to be true yet. We can actually start practicing this level three of self-talk saying we no longer smoke while we’re still smoking. According to Dr. Helmstetter, if we say that we no longer smoke often enough, and with enough intensity, our minds will begin to believe it and then smoking will lose its appeal and hold on us.

            Level four is the opposite of level one. This is the one we use least, but need the most. This is also the one that is most effective and gets us the best results. Here, we’re painting a whole new picture of ourselves of how we want it to be. This level of self-talk can usually be identified when people says, “I am…”

            Level four is positive self-talk that takes place in the present rather than the past or future. Level four is exciting and gives us energy to push forward in creating the new and betterinternal picture of ourselves for real.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self! Part 2

Part Two- Self-Management Sequence

    

        The number one thing that most influences our success or failures, and thus our quality of life is our own behaviors. Basically, our actions or what we do on a consistent basis is what makes us, or breaks us. I’m sure this is common sense and most of us already know this. However, I’m also pretty sure that most of us have also asked ourselves, at least occasionally, why we do not do the things that we know we should do. Well, my friend, according to Dr. Helmstetter, the answer to why we don’t do what we know we should do is because of our feelings.

            You see, our feelings act as a big life filter that all of our actions come out of. Basically, how we feel about something determines what we do and how we do it. If we feel positive about something we will behave in a more positive way with more positive energy, and thus eventually create more success for ourselves. So, now you’re probably asking if this is the secret, then can’t we just control our feelings and have everything we want. The answer isn’t quite that simple because there is something deeper in all of us that is influencing our feelings. And that thing influencing our feelings is our attitudes.

            Our attitudes are how we view life. A good attitude is essential because it will affect how we feel about something and what we do about it, and thus how successful we become. So, I guess now the next question from all you eager achievers out there is where our attitudes come from.

            Well, they come from our beliefs silly! Can you believe how simple this all sounds, yet we all struggle with creating that life that we want, don’t we? The funny thing about our beliefs though, is that they don’t even have to be true. Haven’t we all heard that old saying that if you believe you can, you can. And if you believe that you can’t, you can’t?

            You see, we believe what we were programmed to believe. And right or wrong, all that programming starts on the day that we are born. By the way, why does that nurse have to slap our behinds and make us cry on day one? From the very beginning we’re faced with one of Einstein’s ultimate questions of, “Is this a friendly or unfriendly universe that we all live in?” How we’re programmed and thus what we believe plays a big part in how we see Eistein’s question and what we do about it.

            Like it or not, that’s how the brain works. If we want to manage ourselves in a better way and change our results to better results, something we really can do anytime we choose to, it must first begin with self-talk according to Dr. Helmstetter.

            So, here’s the breakdown of our self-management sequence according to Dr. Helmstetter. First, we start with self-talk. Hopefully, it’s positive and not negative self-talk. That self-talk, true or not, programs our beliefs. And our beliefs, true or not, affect our attitudes. Next, our attitudes, good or bad, affect our feelings. And finally, our feelings, good or bad, drive our behaviors to become successful, unsuccessful, or somewhere in between. Note: many of us tend to land on the success scale pretty close to where our parents and friends landed too… Boy, that self-talk thing is pretty powerful, huh? 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self

   

        As much as 77% of what we say to ourselves may be working against us. And you know what’s even crazier than all of this negative self-talk? Deep down, every one of us innately knows that the world should be fair, and we should get our fair share; yet, we keep saying bad things to ourselves like, “I’m not good enough,” or “Who do I think I am to think I could get get?” when we talk to ourselves.

            You see, part of the problem is that the first 18 years of our lives we are told no 148,000 times by well-meaning people who were only trying to protect us and keep us safe. However, sadly, eventually after all this ‘no’ programming we too eventually join in this bombardment of our own dreams and what’s possible and began telling ourselves, “no”. Repetition sure is a convincing argument, isn’t it? Especially, when we are the ones saying it now, huh?

            Sadly, at this point of saying ‘no’ to ourselves, without realizing it, we begin constructing an invisible wall that stands between ourselves and our dreams, and what’s possible. Even though we can’t see that wall, that wall will remain standing tall and impenetrable for as long as our old programming remains within us. You see, we become the thoughts that are in our minds. And if those thoughts are… ‘no can do’… well, you already know the rest… I don’t even have to tell you…

            You want to know what the really sad thing is though? Someone else programmed us to think like that. And ironically, they were most likely the ones who were on our side and most likely just trying to help us too! Sad, isn’t it? We’ve all heard that saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Life sure can be crazy and confusing!

            There is a silver lining in this dark ominous crazy life-cloud though. That lining is that there are many good self-help programs out there that can improve our lives. The bad thing though, according to Dr. Helmstetter most of them are lacking permanence, knowledge of the psychological process of the brain, and a new word-for-word programming for our minds. However, self-talk does have these three success elements. Thus, Dr. Helmstetter’s self-talk makes a lot of sense because it can paint a new and improved picture of ourselves in our own minds.

            Another good thing in the self-improvement world is that it makes no difference what happened to us in the past or how others programmed us for something less than success without our permission. Thankfully, we literally, can change just a little bit about ourselves in order to gain a whole lot of quality of life back. The little thing we have to deliberately change is what we let others say to us, what we say to ourselves, and what we think and even feel about ourselves. With just a little bit of work we can reprogram ourselves for a better life.

            We really can erase and replace all the less than excellent programming with excellent, life-fulfilling programming with self-talk. Hey, we talk to ourselves all day long anyways. There is just no getting around that. We’re going to do it regardless, so we might as well deliberately change the conversation going on in our own heads. Change the self-talk and change our lives for the better.

            Interestingly, the real obstacle here many times isn’t our subpar programming, but the fact that most of us don’t realize that we’ve let others program us, and now we’re reinforcing it on a daily basis. We have blindly jumped right on that same wave of negativity and have continually strenghened that negative programming from others by what we say to ourselves now.

            Thus, the invisible wall remains. However, we can crack that wall, weaken that wall, and then tear it down through our new and improved spoken words, unspoken thoughts, feelings, impressions, and physical responses. Hey, the former military man inside of me has always said that if you physically feel those butterflies in your stomach, then just command that squadron of butterflies to line up and fly in a wedge formation for you instead of against you.

            We really can do this! You see, Dr. Helmstetter says that the human brain will do anything possible we tell it to do, if we tell it often enough and strong enough. So, let’s get going on this! And let’s do it with some vigor.

            Hey, our subconscious mind is even working right now, day and night, to make sure that we become precisely the person we have unconsciously told ourselves to be. What kind of person have you told it to be? You see, here’s the deal, in order to live our best possible life, we are going to have to ditch the old habit of automatically believing the worst first, and the best last.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

Hunch Part 3

Part Three: The Who, the What and the How

      

      This section of, Hunch by Bernadette Jiwa describes the stories of the people whose everyday insights informed the hunches that they later developed into breakthrough ideas. You see, our world has always been shaped by the most curious people who inhabit it. Academy-Award winning filmmaker James Cameron once said, “Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.” Thus, it would only make sense for us all to do everything in our power to develop it.

            Into the picture comes Carol Jones and Victor Pleshev with their ironing board cover in Australia. In a declining market where fewer couples are getting married, and fewer woman are taking the responsibility of all the domestic chores, Carol and Victor heard “NO!” over and over again in promoting their ironing board cover, However, their niche market of men who value their time and want ironing to be easier and quicker have become their ever-growing market in their little corner of the world.

            Next, in an English market town, Moyez solved the problem of low staff morale, overbooked doctors and slow patient response time by coming up with telephone triage. Who would have thought that just talking to some patients on the phone was enough for many patients? Through a simple little phone call the trained and qualified doctor could decide who has to come in and who doesn’t.

            Finally, Debbie Sterling from a small town in Rhode Island wanted to figure a way to get more girls interested in engineering. Her interest in engineering had been sparked by playing with her older brothers’ construction toys when she was a little girl. However, she knew the common little girl would quickly become bored if they were asked to play with their brother’s construction toys. So, she created a story about a girl engineer named GoldieBlox who went on adventures and solved problems by building simple machines. Through this she combined girls’ natural love of literature and stories with a construction and engineering theme. In 2014 GoldieBlox has won the People’s Choice Toy of the Year Award.

            The rest of Jiwa’s book, Hunch, shares more stories on people that have been innovative by using their imagination to solve problems. They were curious and wanted to find a better way. Jiwa also goes into little exercises that help us find our own imagination and curiosity while practicing how to be more innovative ourselves.

            In the end, it’s very important how we choose to pay attention to influences, what we imagine, and the things we have the foresight to create and ultimately who we become. What truly deserves to occupy the moments that will go from making up our minutes to influencing the impact of we make and the legacy we leave. Jiwa’s book was a quick easy read, I suggest you pick it up and give it a good go-through. You won’t be sorry. 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Hunch Part 2

Part Two: From Everyday Insights to Groundbreaking Ideas

     

       We used to trust our intuition to make important decisions in our lives. And to tell you the truth, some of us still do trust our intuition to makes important decisions, even in the business world. However, somehow it has become unfashionable to admit this, especially in the business world according to Jiwa.

            Just like our ancestors looked for subtle changes to inform their intuition in life and death situations, we too still partake in that kind of behavior in this modern world. We still look for, although, not always aware of it at the moment, but we’re still looking for subtle changes in our environment to help us make better decisions. It just so happens that most of these decisions are no longer life or death decisions. But don’t be fooled. This innate human ability to make those decision based on intuition is still there.

            Our intuition can help us not just get from point A to point B in a new way, but actually envision an entirely new point A and point B. It opens the door to us redefining where the problems end and the solutions begin. It helps us make new connections and forge different paths. And this is a good thing, because as humans we tend to see what we’re looking for. And through persistent effort we can improve our abilities to move from everyday insights to groundbreaking ideas. We all can choose to amplify these special human abilities or ignore them.

            You see, we all can be blinded by what we think we know and ignore all those beautiful little opportunities that are sitting right in front of us every day. And believe me, this does happen every day. People miss the obvious all the time because of what they think they know, and the inability to make the leap to what they might not know. Furthermore, sometimes being a big Fortune 500 Company, Ivy League educated, or having a big important name enslaves us to what we think we know, while the house wife or some guy in a garage is coming up with the next big thing.

            In the changing world of business and work, the skills that are becoming most prevalent are the same ones that make us better rounded, creative, collaborative, generous, and intuitive. With this in mind, it would be wise to develop these qualities in ourselves so that we can contribute to society and make a difference in both our own personal world and the larger world. 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Hunch Part 1

Part One: What’s Stopping You?

            Bernadette Jiwa begins her book, Hunch, with a quote from Anne Lamott where she says, “You get your intuition back when you make space for it”. Today we are surrounded by data that is supposed to make us smarter, but is it? It certainly doesn’t look like it’s making us wiser…You see we know a lot more than we think we know and data is only telling us part of the story and has the tendency to dampen our inherent and vital curiosity. You see, data and our human need for certainty is keeping us from developing our emotional intelligence and cultivating an imagination that could change this world for the better.

            You see, here’s the deal. We actually know more than we think we know. However our feelings of a lack of certainty, even though we can never be 100% certain about anything, is keeping us from acting. We just don’t like to ‘not know’. We don’t want to hear that sometimes the questions are even more important than the answers.

            According to Jiwa, scientific discoveries happen not through method or magic, but from being open to discovery by listening to one’s emotions and responding to intuition. Like a poet, the researcher, as well as the therapist, needs the ability to imagine what the truth might be. We need to let go of the need to have answers in order to be able to come up with the right questions.

      

      The ever-more important innovation is more complex than the simple ‘Aha’! Innovations come from prolonged practice of being curious, empathetic and imaginative. Too many of us are relying on IQ scores and the retention of knowledge. Too many of us also rely on ideas. However, ideas are nothing if they’re not adopted and used. Sometimes the big ideas don’t go anywhere right alongside all that knowledge. And sometimes the next big thing isn’t something that anyone, at its genesis, would have believed would have been the billion-dollar idea.

            Common big, but often false ideas, are often based on technology. However, sadly, technology is often hijacking our minds. Thus, we are noticing less and less and are missing more and more in our ever-increasing technological world. Frequently, we’re throwing away opportunities to think and reflect- to be the kind of person that actually can make things better for ourselves and everyone else in our circles as well.

Too often, distraction is the enemy of insight. Some research suggest that people are checking their phone up to 150 times a day. Often, we feel that we are close to something big and important, but yet, we still don’t make the space to do what it takes to immerse ourselves waist high and elbow deep in the things that cultivate our curiosity and imagination.

The truth is that we can do good work when we create an environment that allows us to do so. However, we have to change some of our behaviors and have a mind-shift that changes our priorities to things that matter and deserve our time. If we want to do something big, then we need to stop wasting our time on things that just aren’t that important.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Primal Leadership Part 4

Part 4 Building Emotionally Intelligent Organizations

       

     Groups are smarter than individuals only when they show emotional intelligence. We’ve all heard of the mob mentality. The mob mentality isn’t so smart. Each member of an emotionally intelligent group must have some degree of emotional intelligence. This is especially true for the leader who sets the emotional tone of the group.  

            The true work of a leader is to monitor the emotional tone of the team and to help its members recognize any underlying dissonance. These can be difficult conversations. Unfortunately, most leaders settle for safer conversations about the team itself, the organization, the people, the strategy, and functional alignment while avoiding the more difficult subjects of emotional reality and the norms of the team. By avoiding these tougher topics the leader is only adding to the dissonance (negative feelings) of the team, and causes individuals to lose touch with their unique own best qualities as their passion fades.

            A company with employees who have a common vision is an emotionally intelligent organization that defines its vision in sync with its employees’ hopes and dreams for themselves. These spectacular companies create extraordinary moments or experiences that people go through together to create that tribal feeling, that shared mythology, which in return, creates a company that has empathy.

            Emotional intelligent leaders connect with a vision that moves a culture toward resonance (positive feelings) through what they feel, sense and think about the organization. They connect with the vision and notice the gaps that the typical data doesn’t identify. They collectively involve all in a deliberate study of themselves and the organization. They look at the reality and the ideal vision, identify gaps and go to work on closing those gaps.

            Ambitious leaders need to slowdown in order to speed up. Bringing in as many people as possible into the conversations about the culture and systems of the organization is critical. Leaders need to see the emotional, and then craft a meaningful vision with which people can identify on a deep and personal level. People need to feel they can reach the organization’s dreams without compromising their own dreams. People come first. Strategy comes second. Focus on what people really want and need, and then build a culture around that and build your dreams together.

            People don’t change because of another five year plan. Besides the era of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin is long over. People change when they are emotionally engaged and committed. Focus on the individual first, then the team second, and then the organization last.

            Our world is calling for change. We are in the midst of transformational change. Half of the business models out there will be obsolete in 2-5 years from now. We can’t be frozen in fear. We must manage our emotions and look for new ways. People can no longer be seen as expendable. The Captains of Industry era of the top-down approach is gone. The art of the relationship is rising to the top today. Emotional intelligence is a must for moving forward…

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Primal Leadership Part 3

Part Three: Making Leaders

    

        We spent much of Part One of the blog about Primal Leadership talking about how emotional intelligence helps leaders, and the lack of emotional intelligence hinders leaders. The ironic thing is that the higher one travels up the ladder of success, the less likely this leader is going to receive honest feedback on his or her emotional intelligence. This phenomenon is called the CEO Disease.

            It takes a lot of courage to tell the boss that he or she has been performing poorly in the emotional intelligence arena lately. This is especially difficult to do when the boss has been a little rough lately and everyone is ducking for cover and trying to stay off the radar. People want to keep their job and continue to be able to feed their children.

            The bottom line is that many CEOs lose some of their self-awareness as they travel up the rings. However, the ironic thing is that study after study shows that self-awareness is greatest among companies doing well, and poorest among companies doing poorly. So, now it comes down to which poor soul is going to put their job on the line to tell the boss that he or she is out of touch and acting like a schmuck because it’s good for the whole company if the boss is made self-aware?

            As I said earlier, the good thing is that emotional intelligence can be learned. However, according to, Primal Leadership, most training and leadership programs only target the neocortex rather than the limbic brain. Leadership skills usually comes down to habits learned early in life. So, if we’re going to re-educate the emotional brain, they typical leadership program isn’t going to cut it. In order, to re-educate the emotional brain we need lots of practice and repetition aimed at the limbic centers of the brain. This kind of learning is very slow; but, that’s a good thing because once it’s learned, it’s learned very well, at a much deeper limbic level. Furthermore, this learning will be retained much longer than traditional surface level cognitive learning.

            The cycle of successful change through emotional intelligence consist first of discovering what our ideal self really is. Second, then unearthing who we exactly are. What is our real self? Third, we have to discover what our learning agenda is. Next, we have to practice our new thoughts and behaviors over and over and over. Lastly, we need to discover some supportive relationships. We need people who help us succeed.

            Emotional intelligence in leaders requires that they at least have some vision of their ideal lives. Through this vision they can uncover their real selves. This requires self-awareness though. Leadership strengths lie at the crossroads of where one’s real self matches one’s ideal self. Where it doesn’t are the gaps that one needs to work on.

            Improvement plans crafted around learning rather than performance outcomes have been found to be more effective for working on those gaps mentioned in the paragraph above. The best kind of learning is when one gets to focus on what one wants to become; one’s ideal self, rather than what others want him or her to become. One’s own life goals ignite their full range of talents. And the more parts of one’s life that can be identified as relevant to one’s leadership goals, the more chances one will have to practice and grow. Being handed a performance goal des the opposite. It undermines motivation. It causes anxiety, and decreases performance.

            Goals should be built on a person’s strengths, not their weaknesses. Plans of improvement should be flexible, feasible, and fit into their life and work, as well as fit into their learning style if it’s going to have the biggest impact on their development and growth.

            The problem is that people try to force leadership upon others and thus these poor souls learn it haphazardly by repeating what they saw others do while growing up, or their own poor previous attempts at it. The good thing is that one can improve in leadership by becoming aware of bad habits and constantly practicing a better way until one masters it. Having a good supportive relationship here really helps a lot in making this change.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

How to Piss Off Producers and Never Get on TV and Radio

Marketing yourself as an expert in your field means getting in front of prospects using traditional media outlets such as television and radio news. But only those who know how to work effectively with the gatekeepers of this industry, known as producers, will actually get invited to appear in front of the camera or the microphone. This article lays out many successful techniques for working with producers, but in a humorous style that demonstrates what some adults actually do that kills their opportunities for getting media attention.

One way of growing your brand and expanding your influence as an industry expert is to become a much sought after contributor to television news programs. That means creating relationships with the producers of those news programs and giving them what they need to do their job... content. All it takes is a little humility, professionalism, patience, and persistence to make it happen. But all too often I've met people who don't get it and instantly ruin their chances of ever getting on those programs. They're also the ones who tend to complain as to why they aren't getting the business they expect. To give something for the rest of us to learn from, here are 12 ways of never getting on TV, courtesy of those who've burned their bridges before us. 

Don't Watch Local TV Programming: Major network affiliates offer local news programming to feature both local and national stories to inform and educate their viewers. Ignore your local stations and don't take the time to find out if they offer a morning, midday, or early evening local news magazine show that features local experts. 

Don't Contact Your Local Stations: Most major affiliate network stations have local offices and studios that are staffed by receptionists. Don't waste your time, trying to find their contact phone numbers to ask for the names and email addresses of the news magazine show producers. 

Don't Bother Introducing Yourself: Because you're far too busy and have so much to get done, don't reach out to the local producers with an introductory email explaining briefly who you are and what information you can provide them with, to help them beef up their segments. 

Don't Send them Leads: As an industry expert, you're probably constantly watching for the latest trends and producing content such as books, eBooks, articles, blog posts, and more. Don't bother to help a producer out by sending an email containing a 3 - 5 bulleted story lead each week that you can comment on. You have way more important things to do. 

Take Your Sweet Time Replying: If by chance a TV news program producer does respond to one of your leads, wait a few days or even weeks to reply. Better yet, have your assistant reply instead or ignore the email all together. You can't possibly be expected to fit in one more thing into your day. 

Make Your Existing Appointments More Important: When a producer needs an on-air contributor, they may ask an expert to come in at a moment's notice or very early in the morning or even very late at night. Decline the producer's request by being too busy or unwilling to move existing appointments. This way they are sure not to contact you in the future. 

Let Them Know How You Were Inconvenienced: If by chance you get invited into the studio for an on-camera interview and it is cancelled or postponed, place a call or send an email to the producer letting them know how inconvenient that unexpected change was. I'm sure they will apologize and make it up to you. 

Demand to Speak with Their Boss: If you had gotten all the way into the studio and your segment is suddenly preempted for breaking news and you're dismissed, let the producer know how angry you are and demand to speak to her boss about being inconvenienced. 

Call and Voice Your Disappointment: If the segment in which you were interviewed did not air on the date and at the time you were told, call or write the producer to let him know how unfair it was for you to have invested your time and effort for no reason. I'm sure they'll make sure it never happens again. 

Do Not Send a Thank You Note: Save your money and don't buy a box of thank you cards. Forget about sending off a short note of thanks to the news program producer, you can use that valuable five minutes for other more important matters. 

Let Them Find Their Own Expert: Once you establish a relationship with a TV show producer, they may contact you out of the blue, when they are seeking commentary on a topic that is close to, but not exactly within your area of expertise. Let them know that you can't help them or just ignore their request all together. Do not recommend to them, any other experts in your network that may be more skilled at providing what they're seeking. Why bother helping them if you're not going to benefit from the opportunity. 

Send a "Nasty Gram" Letter to the Studio: Without notice, your emails to the producer are coming back undeliverable, stating that the producer is no longer working there. TV producers experience lots of stress and are under great pressure, which means the person in that position may change frequently. But that's not your problem. Send an email or letter to the studio describing your inconvenience of having to start the process of finding the contact information for the new producer, all over again. As ridiculous as some or all of these points might sound to you, I've seen or heard of unconscious professionals making these exact mistakes. I coach experts in growing their speaking business. I help my clients understand how busy producers are and what it takes to grow yourself as an industry expert that producers call first. I welcome comments on how you've seen others make these mistakes or new ones that I did not include in this piece.

Bill Corbett is the author of the Amazon top-seller, From the Soapbox to the Stage: How to Use Your Passion to Start a Speaking Business. Connect with Bill at http://BillCorbett.com.

Primal Intelligence Part 2

Part Two: The Power of Emotional Intelligence Continued

 In part one we talked about the emotional intelligence domains and the associated competencies that are a prerequisite to good leadership. Now we’re going to move onto the different leadership styles. The direct leadership styles discussed in Primal Leadership are: 1. Visionary. 2. Coaching. 3. Affiliative. 4. Democratic. These first four are good for building a resonance leadership that drives positive emotions and feelings that was discussed earlier. The last two of: 5. Pacesetting, and 6. Commanding can also be effective leadership styles, but must be used sparingly because they can cause dissonance, or negative feelings and emotions.

            A visionary leader gets buy-in from others because this leader helps people understand their “why”. This kind of leader is inspiring, and is empathic. A smart company realizes that vision offers a company its unique ‘brand’ or a way to distinguish itself from other companies in the same field or industry. Smart companies use this vision as a standard for performance and performance feedback. It helps employees see how they contribute to the big picture.

            The coaching style doesn’t scream bottom-line results, but in a surprisingly indirect way it gets results through the leaders really getting to know their people, establishing rapport and trust, and successfully linking their daily work to their long-term goals. Coaches are really good at keeping people motivated. And motivated people tend to improve the bottom-line.

            Affiliative leaders nurture personal relationships. They value downtime because it builds up emotional capital that can be drawn from when times get tough. They focus on the emotional needs of their people over goals and are good at healing rifts and bringing a team back together. They are good at solving conflict and creating harmony. These leaders also have some vision. Joe Torre, manager of the famed New York Yankees baseball team was a good example of an affiliative leader.  

            Democratic leaders are great at listening to others. They truly hear what people say. They are great communicators. Democrat leadership style works great when leaders aren’t certain which direction to go. They’re great at getting buy-in. They’re also great at implementing the vision that others haven’t been successful in doing. Democratic leaders actually execute the vision and tend to get fresh ideas all along the way from their workers on how to implement the vision even better.

            Now, onto the last two leadership styles. Pacesetting works great when one already has a team that is highly motivated and needs very little direction, and are competent. Since very few of us are leading the UConn Husky girls’ basketball team, we need to use the pacesetting leadership style sparingly. Coach Geno Auriemma probably doesn’t. This style can be misleading because in the beginning one can get results. However, pacesetting in the wrong environment usually turns our vision into just pure survival. It poisons the climate. And that’s bad for everyone.

            Of all the leadership styles, the commanding style, which is really the coercive approach, doesn’t just poison the climate, but it can destroy it! It destroys the morale of the workforce as people walk around on egg shells afraid to do anything. They spend a good amount of their energy, not being the creative genius that they were meant to be, but rather just trying to stay off the radar. Now, to be fair, there are still some commanding leaders left over in the military and medical fields, for example, who are still getting good results. But, unfortunately, many of these gains aren’t real or lasting.

            Their gains are usually short-term gains with an extremely high cost, especially to personal and human capital. When these commanding leaders are finally pushed out the door, that’s when what they really did comes unraveled and then it comes all crashing down, taking years to rebound; if ever able to rebound from the former wrecking ball. This is when it probably makes sense to find a good affiliative leader who can come in and heal the rifts and damaged relationships that the last leader left in his or her wake. 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

PRIMAL INTELLIGENCE

Part One: The Power of Emotional Intelligence

        

    The real magic of great leaders isn’t in what they do, but rather in how they do it. Understanding the emotional tones in the workplace is what separates the best leaders from the average leaders. The leaders who understand emotions are better able to build higher morale, more motivation and a deeper commitment among their workers, which creates better retention of talent and better results on the productivity side. All of these positive factors add up to positive profits.

            The bottom line is that followers are always looking to leaders for emotional support and empathy. When leaders drive out invisible toxic emotions and drive in positive emotions it is called resonance in this book. And when leaders drive emotions towards the negative it’s called dissonance. Everyone watches the boss. People take their cues from the boss. So the boss better be aware of the emotional tone that he or she is setting.

            People want to work with leaders who have some emotional intelligences and are able to exude upbeat feelings. Creating this positive upbeat atmosphere is how emotionally intelligent leaders are able to retain talented people.

            One of the oldest laws of psychology is that anything beyond a moderate level of anxiety and worry erodes mental abilities and makes us less emotionally intelligent. Thus, leaders who spread bad moods are bad for business because employees are likely to quit. And the ones who stay, can’t be at their best or even think at their best. So, once again poor emotional leaders are bad for business. But, you want to know what is good for business? Good mood spreaders who are emotionally intelligent leaders. They are good for business because of many reasons. However, here is just one of those reasons: every 1% increase in the service climate creates a 2% increase in revenue.

            We can no longer afford to believe that just because a very intelligent person was put into a leadership position that it will automatically make everything okay. Einstein once said, “We should take care not to make the intellect our God. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve.” Good intellect can serve. Good emotional intelligence can lead. Now imagine what the two of them can do together.

            There is no fixed formula for great leadership and it’s not innate. We aren’t born with it. That really is good news, and so is this next part too. The emotional intelligence necessary for great leadership can be learned. Furthermore, there is no one set path to great leadership. As the old maxim goes, there are many roads to Rome.

            However, if one hopes to become a great leader someday, studies have shown that it helps to have at least one competency from each of the four fundamental areas of emotional intelligence. These four domains consist of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

            Self-awareness consist of things like knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses. People who are self-aware have a ‘gut-sense’ to guide their decision-making process. They self-manage, which means they have self-control, have integrity, are flexible and are optimistic. These people are usually also self-starters, and achievers.

            Social awareness is having empathy or understanding the perspectives of others. It’s having the ability to read the currents and the politics of a particular situation and environment. As well as, recognizing and meeting customer needs.

            Relationship management is being able to motivate people with a compelling vision and then being able to persuade them to move forward and do it. It’s developing others. It’s resolving conflict. And it’s also being able to go in a new direction while maintaining friendships, and being a good team player.

            So as this book, Primal Leadership mentioned earlier, if you have at least one competency from each of the four domains of emotional intelligence you’re in a pretty good place to be a good leader someday.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Ted Talks Part 5

TED Talks

Part 5 Reflection

Today, knowledge is becoming more specialized than ever before according to Chris Anderson author of TED Talks. TED Talks is a breath of fresh air in today’s times, as well as, some good old fashion common sense. TED Talks reminds us that all knowledge is connected into a giant web and that public speaking skills are going to matter in the future even more than they do today.

Everyone probably realizes by now that computers are taking over specialized knowledge from us human beings. So, what do you think is going to eventually become the only thing left for us humans? That’s right. We’re going to need to go back to being more human by utilizing more contextual knowledge and more creative knowledge. We’re going to have to develop a deeper understanding of our own humanity according to Anderson.

We develop this deeper humanity through the speaking renaissance that’s taking place today in public speaking, as well as the TED Talks taking place all over the world. And even more important, thanks to the Internet these talks are also accessible to all of us. In the very near future, we’re going to have to learn from people outside of our specialties or fields in order for us to develop a deeper understanding of our world and our role in it.

Online video is providing visibility to the best talent in the world and also has a massive incentive to improve upon what is already out there. People are becoming YouTube stars in their niche communities through a thing called, “crowd accelerated innovation”. It’s the most exciting application in the world of ideas and to improve upon ideas. We have this amazing laboratory right at every one of our own fingertips, which is rooted in public speaking and presentation literacy through the digital world that is streaming right into our homes and even into some of our pockets on our handheld devices.

When we finally do reach our goal of giving a TED Talk, let’s try to remember that it’s not the end, but just the beginning. In addition, it also isn’t about being safe, secure, and right. It’s about creating something that will breed further ideas and be impactful. The future isn’t written yet. We are all collectively writing it together. “There is an open page on every empty stage waiting for our contributions,” says Anderson. Let’s go get ‘em and do our part to contribute to a new and improved better world!

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

TED TAlks Part 4

TED Talks

Part 4 On The Stage

TED speakers don’t wear suits according to Chris Anderson author of TED Talks! Be comfortable. Wear casual clothing that gives a sense that we’re all at some comfortable fun retreat together. Remember to dress for the people in the back row by wearing bright colors so our image really pops. Fitted clothing is better than baggy clothing. No wrinkled clothes. Also, remember that TED Talks records us for video. So, avoid all white and jet black, as well as small tight patterns. Ladies, you’re probably not going to want to wear big dangling ear rings that could make distracting noises the microphone might pick up. Also, wearing a belt helps because we can attach the microphone battery pack to it.

We can control our nerves by focusing on the message instead of ourselves. Remember, we’re there to give not to get. If still nervous, we can focus on our breathing and repeat our mantra of, “I got this!”, and “This is fun!” We can also do some physical exercise or visualize someone who we admire that always looks like they’re having fun up there. If we’re up on that stage, it means that someone thought we had something valuable enough to say to put us up there. They are rooting for us, and so is the audience. So let’s do this!

Let’s be brave and bold and courageous by moving out from behind the lectern. Don’t worry. Our notes can stay right there on the lectern and we can glance at them as we sip water from time to time as I mentioned earlier. TED Talks also has other ways too of helping support us and our message. TED has the technology for us to use slides, or have our notes on a back distant screen where no one sees it but us. However, this strategy allows some of the crowd to see that we are not really looking at them.

Some speakers use their iPhone, but this can be tricky though because the screen is small and it’s easy to lose our connection with the audience while looking down for an extended time trying to find our place as we’re stuck scrolling through our notes. Struggling to find our place again usually isn’t the best way to give a speech.

TED Talks also has a confidence monitor aimed up at us from the floor and even an autocue, which is a screen that is invisible to the audience, even though it’s right in our line of sight just as if we were looking right at them. As awesome as this may seem, some in the audience will still figure out that we’re not really looking at them, but instead are reading from an invisible screen. Even among all this awesome technology that TED Talks provides, sometimes some good old fashion notes on a cue card or a simple sheet of paper up at the lectern is still the best bet.

Regardless of how we approach our talk, let’s just remember to be authentic. Let’s relax and just give our talk in our own way. Let’s not be afraid to let our personality shine through. After all, our personality is one of the most important parts of the speech. Also, important is remembering that speaking is a very impactful way of sharing ideas because we can literally turn the information we want to share into inspiration. We can create this inspiration by injecting a variety of strategies not available to the written word, such as, the volume we use, our pitch, pace, timing, tone and prosody, which are all based on the meaning that we’re trying to convey. And we always need to remember that what we have to say is meaningful.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.