Category: Leadership

3 Powers of Proactive Worry

Worry isn’t just in your head. You feel worry in your body. Some have stomach issues, others neck and shoulder pain.

Chronic worry triggers ‘stress hormones’ that elevate your heart and breathing, raise your blood sugar, and send more blood to your arms and legs. You can develop hardening of the arteries, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.

Proactive worry motivates action not rumination.

Proactive worry is:

Worry is good when unavoidable danger heads at you. Tax Day comes every year. Proactive worry says keep up with record-keeping.

1. Accepting reality.
2. Noticing stress, worry, and anxiety. Pretending things are better than they are aggravates worry.
3. Responding to emotional tension with action.
4. Acting before you need to.
5. Defining and solving root causes of recuring problems.
6. Creating confidence in yourself and your future.
7. Learning to not worry about things outside your control.

3 powers of proactive worry:

#1. Get busy.

Handwringing is not a strategy.

The best thing you can do with worry is get off the couch.

1. On a scale of 1:10, how likely will your worry happen? Spend energy on things that are likely to happen.
2. How can you prevent or prepare for anticipated problems?

#2. Invite elephants to dance.

Dance with elephants when they’re young.

You can ignore problems, but you can’t escape them. Baby elephants get bigger; eventually you face them down.

It’s easier to dance with baby elephants than full-grown bulls.

#3. Persecute recurring problems.

When you have the same conversation over and over, call it out. You waited too long when you feel deja’vu. Refusing to change your approach has become hard-headed stupidity, not grit.

Approach recurring problems with a commitment to find actionable solutions. Don’t allow yourself to rehash old issues for the third time.

What positive value might worry offer?

Added resources:

The Advantage of Atychiphobia – the Fear of Failure

Physical Effects of Worrying

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6 Ways to Lead with Heart

Lead with heart to get above the fog.

6 ways to lead with heart:

#1. Get above the fog.

Purpose is about heart. Declare the purpose of meetings before people show up, for example. Set goals with deadlines.

Lead with heart by bringing up tough topics with openness.

#2. Strengthen relationships between others.

You enrich people when you provide opportunity to build relationships with others.

I hadn’t talked with John Spence in years; so I reached out. We connected and he introduced me to philosopher Tom Morris. A coaching client introduced me to a corporate leader at Chick-fil-A Supply. A friend and long-time reader of Leadership Freak introduced me to executive coach Heath Diekart. An editor at BenBella introduced me to David Adler, founder of BizBash.

Relationships enrich life.

#3. Provide a steady hand on the rudder.

Anxious leaders have anxious followers.

Don’t add to anxiety unnecessarily. Provide stability; establish rituals at work.

1. Greet people with a smile and eye contact.
2. Walk around once or twice a day.
3. Be known for asking some of the same questions. When you ask the same questions, people know what matters.

#4. Say nice things to people.

Problems, pressure, and stress make being nice unusual. Don’t lower standards to be nice. Lead with heart.

Don’t confuse tough with mean.

Don’t turn coaching into criticizing.

Only open your mouth to make things better.

#5. Practice challenge AND support.

Ask two questions before your one-on-ones.

1. How can I challenge people to challenge themselves?
2. How can I support people without creating helplessness?

#6. Give people control.

Control freaks make lousy leaders. Talent likes to drive the boat.

Set a clear coarse and get out of the way.

Control freak question: How can I give control to others?

How can leaders lead with heart?

Still curious:

4 Ways to Become a Leader with an Open Heart

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3 Destructive Lies about Feelings

Two-year olds do what they feel.

You’re doomed until you learn to live beyond feelings.

You’re unstable when feelings control you. You’re unpredictable until character – not emotion – guides action. When you feel like sleeping do you go with your gut and stay in bed or do you jump in the shower? The difference is character.

A person governed by character is predictable, but you tiptoe around emotional volatility. The less tiptoeing teams need to do the more success they enjoy.

Don’t wait to feel it just get busy.

3 destructive lies about feelings:

Lie #1: You need to feel it before you do it.

The notion that you need to feel it before you do it is bull crap! People protest, “I feel like a hypocrite when emotion doesn’t align with action.”

Did you feel like giving your first public talk? Probably not. But you did.

When you do the right thing when you feel like doing the wrong thing, you’re responsible, not hypocritical.

Lie #2: It’s disingenuous when you do something you don’t feel.

Manipulation is disingenuous. When you feel like lying but tell truth it’s character.

You’re completely genuine when you live into your aspirational self. You don’t have to feel grateful to practice gratitude when you aspire to be grateful.

Practice gratitude when you don’t feel grateful. Someone might complain, “But I feel like a hypocrite. Isn’t it disingenuous when you do something you don’t feel?”

Lie #3: You can’t make yourself feel something.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who feel their way into behaviors and those who behave their way into feeling.

Emotion follows action.

Action produces emotion.

Put a big smile on your face and your brain starts thinking you’re happy. Practice gratitude: feelings follow.

What do you do when you don’t feel like doing the right thing?

Here’s more:

4 Ways to Practice Gratitude when You Don’t Feel Grateful

Four Ways Gratitude Helps You with Difficult Feelings

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Thanksgiving Reflection 2022

I woke up to the smell of stuffing being made. I don’t know if you say ‘dressing’ or ‘stuffing’. It’s all delicious to me. My wife started preparing ‘the bird’ before I got up. After I got up, I bumbled around offering help. She just wants me out of the way. I’ll explain my real jobs in a minute.

Around 11:30 I decided to take the chill off, so I wandered down to my rambling office to start a fire in our Vermont Casting stove. I reclined in the Lazy Boy and read portions of the “Essays of E.B. White,” while I tended the fire. Thankfully fires don’t need much tending. Burning wood smells like home.

I call my office rambling because it’s four-times larger than it needs to be. Beyond typical office stuff, it has a stove and a Lazy Boy. I set up office in what used to be our living room. We built a new living room. We needed an addition when the kids were little, but we couldn’t afford it until they left home. My wife enjoys the new kitchen. I enjoy the food she cooks in it.

It’s 12:30 and the smell of turkey has replaced the smell of stuffing. Both smells feel peaceful. The kids and grandkids will arrive soon and perfectly disturb the peace. The popper will pop on the bird. Hours of labor will be gobbled down in no time at all.

The wife of my youth just walked in wide-eyed and gave me two thumbs up. She didn’t speak a word. Just thumbs up. I knew the popper popped. The bird is done. I grabbed the potholders and set him on the counter. Job-one done. I sampled the crusty stuffing. It smells like Thanksgiving. Now it tastes like Thanksgiving.

It means so much because we’ve done it so often. Around 2:30 job-two will be done when I take out the garbage.

We had bone turkey for our first Thanksgiving

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30 Delightful Inconveniences for Thanksgiving – Leadership Freak {const n=e.match(d);return!(!n||!new RegExp(n[1],n[2]).test(navigator.userAgent))||navigator.userAgent.includes(e)})))return;e.g.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,(()=>{const e=document.getElementById(“amp-mobile-version-switcher”);if(!e)return;e.hidden=!1;const n=e.querySelector(“a[href]”);n&&n.addEventListener(“click”,(()=>{sessionStorage.removeItem(a)}))}));const g=o&&[“paired-browsing-non-amp”,”paired-browsing-amp”].includes(window.name);if(sessionStorage.getItem(a)||r||g)return;const m=new URL(location.href),h=new URL(t);h.hash=m.hash,m.searchParams.has(s)&&i===m.searchParams.get(s)?sessionStorage.setItem(a,”1″):h.href!==m.href&&(window.stop(),location.replace(h.href))}({“ampUrl”:”https://leadershipfreak.blog/2022/11/24/30-random-delightful-inconveniences/?amp=1″,”noampQueryVarName”:”noamp”,”noampQueryVarValue”:”mobile”,”disabledStorageKey”:”amp_mobile_redirect_disabled”,”mobileUserAgents”:[“Mobile”,”Android”,”Silk/”,”Kindle”,”BlackBerry”,”Opera Mini”,”Opera Mobi”],”regexRegex”:”^\/((?:.|n)+)\/([i]*)$”,”isCustomizePreview”:false,”isAmpDevMode”:false})}(); ]]>

30 Delightful Inconveniences for Thanksgiving

1. Struggling to find my glasses in a dark bedroom.
2. Choosing the right pillow so I won’t have a crick in my neck when I get up.
3. Wrapping up in the Minky Couture blanket my wife gave me for Christmas a few years back. I wouldn’t need it if it was warm outside.
4. Waiting for coffee.
5. Choosing between vanilla or chocolate.
6. Trying to figure out if you want a single or double Bourbon Bacon Burger at Wendy’s.
7. Construction vehicles.
8. Taking medicine.
9. An internet outage.
10. Tripping over toys.
11. Making room at the table.
12. Eating too much.
13. Needing to lose weight.
14. Needing a favor from a friend.
15. Hearing the same story about grandma’s first date with grandpa.
16. Hiding sappy-movie-tears. I cry when I watch coffee commercials during the holidays.
17. An electric bill.
18. Taking the car for service.
19. Turning on the heated seats in my wife’s car.
20. Complaining that my no-frills Toyota Pickup doesn’t have a hood scoop.
21. Waiting for a new Lazy Boy recliner to be manufactured and delivered. The salesperson winked when he said, “They tell me 6 to 8 weeks.”
22. Saying, “We’re trying to simplify our lives.”
23. Selling stuff you don’t want anymore.
24. Friends. Sometimes I brag, “I’m my own favorite company.” But that’s only half true.
25. Not liking things about the people who are close to you.
26. An old person who needs someone to talk to.
27. A young person who thinks you’re too old to know anything.
28. An old person who asks a young person to explain technology.
29. The morning sun glaring on my laptop screen while I’m wrapped up in your Minky Couture.
30. Unwrapping from my blanky to refresh my coffee.

Happy Thanksgiving

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5 Ungrateful People

#1. Bob Betterman.

Bob is an expert faultfinder. He’s ungrateful because no one measures up. He sees weaknesses in everyone.

#2. Sam Firstboy.

Sam won’t say it, but he believes people exist to serve him. He may seem humble, kind, and polite but arrogance beats in his heart.

Ungrateful people eventually grab their toys and run home because people disappoint.

Tip: You always have a place when you show up to serve. (We serve each other. Let people serve you, too.)

#3. Nelly Knowsmore.

Nelly knows how everyone should do their job, even though she doesn’t actually do their job.

I keep my mouth shut when my wife is cooking. For some reason I know how she should cook, even though my expertise in cooking ends with burgers on the grill. (I learned this lesson the hard way.)

Be grateful for the knowledge of others, even if you think you know more.

#4. Tammy Bossmore.

Tammy loves telling people what to do. She’s ungrateful because they never do quite enough.

Tammy’s ungrateful because, like Bob Betterthan, she feels superior to the ‘little people’.

#5. Harry Hogsthespotlite.

Harry believes the applause others receive is undeserved and the applause he receives is inadequate.

Praise is a limiter for those who can’t live without it.

The person who needs the spotlight only rises to the level of the praise they receive.

The first time someone on your team receives praise for something you taught them – but you remain unacknowledged – is one of the great tests of leadership.

Enabling and empowering gets to the point that others outshine you in some area. That’s when you step into the shadows.

You look pathetic when you bring up your contribution to someone else’s success. What enemies of gratitude do you notice?

You rise on the wings of gratitude and people rise with you.

Who might you add to the list?

This post was originally published 11/25/2020

Bonus material:

The Five Freedoms of Gratitude

This four-letter Word is the Enemy of Gratitude (PT)

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3 Reasons Smart Leaders Tell Stories – How You Can Too

“We’re all stories in the end.” Steven Moffat

Tell your story even though every human story already happened. You are the only unique thing in your story.

3 reasons smart leaders tell stories:

#1. Build a platform where people meet.

You can connect in three sentences.

“Ben’s dying. 

That’s what Ben’s father says to the camera as we see Ben play in the background. Ben is two years old and doesn’t know that a brain tumor will take his life in a matter of months.” Greater Good

Every story you hear says something about the teller.

People like you when you respect their stories.

#2. Give advice without telling people how to live.

“Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories. And they will figure out how those stories apply to them.” Randy Pausch

#3. Overcome reluctance in others.

Suppose someone belittles the value of text messages.

One leader said, “I can yell or bang on my teenage son’s door for an hour. But he’s downstairs in a minute when I send him a text.”

7 ways to harvest your stories:

1. Recall places you lived.
2. Reflect on painful experiences and failures.
3. Remind yourself of joyful experiences and successes.
4. Make a list of the significant people in your history. How is life different because of the people on your list?
5. List important lessons you learned. What happened before those lessons? What was different about you after those lessons?
6. Think about tipping points in your life.
7. What stories are behind this sentence. “I’m so thankful for _____.” (Replace thankful with angry, excited about, or discouraged.)

Think about how life changed after you relocated, felt painful defeat, or faced fear.

Tip: Ask a new acquaintance to tell you their best story.

What story greatly impacted your life?

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The Power of Noticing – Things that Get Noticed Get Done

It comes every year, but winter is always a surprise in Pennsylvania. The leaves are glorious one day and the next the birch out back is bare and cold. I like winter. I fired up the stove in my office about three-weeks ago. The ceramic tiles warm my toes now.

Every winter my wife sees a warning light in her Honda CRV. It’s low tire pressure. I fire up my air compressor and pump up the tires. I did my duty before lunch yesterday.

When I came in, she asked, “How many were down?” I said, “All of them.” Apparently, air molecules huddle together when temperatures drop below freezing. Then she asked, “Does this happen with your truck?” I replied, “Not yet.”

I drive a basic Toyota Pickup. The only frills are an automatic transmission and air conditioning. No climate control. I control the heater myself. Recently I told my wife I better trade-up before I crack-up fiddling with the temperature on my heater.

It’s 5 a.m. but I grabbed a flashlight, slipped on my crocks, and made a quick trip to the garage in shorts and tee-shirt to see if my no-frills-Toyota has TPMS – Tire Pressure Monitoring System. I’m resting easy. It does. I’m going to warm my toes on the ceramic tiles in my office. It’s 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Things that get noticed get done.

You’re so busy you forget to notice; you just do the next thing. You end up going where you’ve always been when you don’t notice life’s trajectory.

Make three columns on a piece of paper. In column one record three of your best achievements. In column two record the behaviors that enabled your best achievements. In column three answer this question, “How will you honor your future today?”

What does noticing look like to you today?

Still curious:

Noticing: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Noticing – Not Feedback – Enhances Performance and Elevates Satisfaction

The Art of Noticing

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Saturday Sage: Influence People with Stories

Joe Friday, from the TV show Dragnet, said, “Just the facts, Ma’am.” But a sage is known for stories that change lives.

10 reasons to tell a story:

1. Develop new friendships.
2. Ignite emotion.
3. Deepen influence.
4. Promote relatability.
5. Encourage empathy.
6. Establish and strengthen trust.
7. Boost contagion. People tell stories about the stories they heard.
8. Instigate curiosity.
9. Increase impact.
10. Frame problems that need solutions.

Stories are gifts that go with people when they part.

“A good story is ‘Life with the dull parts taken out’.” Alfred Hitchcock

Learning to tell stories:

When does a sage learn to be a great storyteller? Along the way.

A sage always has a fishing rod in his hand, ready to catch a story.

Great storytellers heard stories when they were kids. Some stories were passed along from year to year, even from generation to generation. 

Eaves dropping is another source of stories. Listen to stories. Never interrupt someone when they are telling their story. Take it in. Never one-up.

A sage observes life in action.

Talent or skill:

Storytelling is not a talent. It is a learned skill. Learn it early. Learn it well. Practice, evaluate, invite others to critique your stories, practice, evaluate, and practice again. 

Great storytellers hone their craft through repetition.   

Great stories captivate, educate, and inspire.

“There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” J.K. Rowling

Duration of stories:

Some stories are long; many are short.  Ann Lamott tells a story in fifteen words.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” How many life-changing conversations could begin with those fifteen words?

Ernest Hemingway won a ten-dollar bet by writing this six-word story “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” (The validity of this claim is questionable, but we love the story.)

The length of a story is about connection, not clocks.

“Connecting is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in such a way that it increases our influence with them.” John Maxwell

Storytelling is a friend to a sage because it establishes human connection and heightens imagination.

Bad delivery:

1. Influence flies out the window.
2. Anticipation wains.
3. Disappointment turns to resistance when stories are mentioned.
4. Interest in stories by new storytellers goes down.
5. Old paradigms take root.
6. Heart and soul leave the room.
7. Data becomes god.

A good story told by a bad storyteller wastes time and insults listeners.

Short-sighted leaders move…

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The Person You Dance Around Has Control

Marionettes resemble reality but comically fall short. That’s us when others pull the strings. The person you dance around controls you.

Realities of control:

Governments:

Governments control us with fear and reward.  Police officers use fines to enforce speed limits. Fear of getting caught keeps us in line. When I’m confident I won’t get caught, I set my own speed limits.

When the government wants you to stop speeding, they punish you for speeding. When the government wants you to use electric vehicles, they reward you. In both cases you suffer when you ignore authority.

Teams:

Teams that control themselves are rare. The person in control sets direction, establishes rules of engagement, and often makes decisions. You thrive when you conform.

Individuals:

The person you’re afraid to confront controls you. You endure a bullying boss, for example, because you need the money. Control is mostly illusion; response is the exception. (Read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning)

You influence other people’s performance; you don’t control it. When someone under-performs, you control your response. You can’t force them to improve. Understand that no response is a response. All responses have consequences.

7 ways to be a real person instead of a marionette:

1. Know what you want. Unfocused frustration is destructive.
2. Avoid anger and bitterness. Prolonged painful emotion like anger and resentment indicates helplessness. Someone else is pulling the strings.
3. Work to control yourself. If you weren’t afraid, what would you do?
4. Accept the decisions of others. Many leaders try to change people who refuse to change.
5. Understand you don’t change anyone. We change ourselves. It’s frustrating to fight reality.
6. Notice the people you fear offending. They pull the strings.
7. Have a clear vision for your life.

What does controlling your responses look like today?

Still curious:

24 Ways to Challenge People Without being a Jerk-Hole

Dear Dan: An Employee Yelled at Me

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