Friday, May 7, 2010
On Tuesday I wrote a post “Leader as Loving Parent” where I championed the premise that change is necessary even though it’s really tough.
If I would have known what I was going to hear today, I would have saved the ink and just summarized Chip Heath’s talk “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.” It was fantastic.
I want to share my takeaways…I’ve tried to compile them so they will be relevant regardless of whether or not you saw the presentation:
Continue Reading
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
In Part One of this two-part series I introduced the topic of overcoming anxiety, shared my battle, put forth a partial list of well-known people who fought an anxiety disorder at some point and their life, and sought to provide motivation for taking steps to conquer it. I also mentioned that, according to some studies, highly intelligent people (execs, successful entrepreneurs, consultants, gifted creatives, etc.) are seven times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder. If you missed it, you can find it here.
I’m going to now dive right in and summarize Dr. Stan Hibbs three step solution to overcoming anxiety. It’s what he taught me, and he’s put it in written form in his book Anxiety Gone.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Psychologists will tell you that a key motivator in life is fear. All people, especially leaders, must manage their behavior daily in dozens of different situations.
Much of our behavior, particularly our anxieties, are driven by conditioned responses. I’m not going to attempt to delve into the details of how they interrelate, but suffice it to say we respond to stimuli in such a way that our brains develop a pattern that make some of our actions almost reflexive in nature.
This is why most of us hate going to the dentist: While “George” was having a cavity filled by his dentist, the drill hit a nerve a couple of times that had not been dulled by anesthetic. Each time he cringed in pain. Our poor George now gets anxious each time he sees the dentist). Though this topic strays from my usual subjects, I am writing about it primarily for four reasons:
1. Everyone experiences anxiety and how we handle it will influence our level of personal and professional fulfillment.
2. Having dealt with it in somewhat of an extreme sense – I’ll share more about what happened in my story below – I’ve invested quite a bit of time learning strategies for handling it.
3. Highly intelligent people (read many execs, consultants, successful entrepreneurs, and gifted creatives) are by some estimates seven times more likely to develop an anxiety disorder than a person of average intelligence.
4. We lead from our character and skills. That which makes one a more capable person makes him a better leader and businessperson.
