Sunday, February 21, 2010
Effective leaders can’t see dead people – but they possess a kind of sixth sense for reading those around them. During a summer internship in college I setup a number of meetings with the executives of the company to learn more about leadership. One lesson from the CEO to this day clearly stands out in my mind.
He said that his best leadership gift was his ability to know the keys to motivating each of his executives and managers.
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.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Societies and their individuals tend to place value judgments on things that are value neutral, at times carelessly ascribing positive value to something without virtue and negative value to that which is not faulty.
Last night, while we spent some needed time together, my wife shared how she struggled with the idea of how “simple” she was. We started talking about simplicity versus complexity and the value of each in its place. It struck me how clearly Brandi placed a strong intrinsic negative value on simplicity.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Much of our success and happiness in life depends upon our ability to understand and relate well with others. To that end, I wanted to share the most valuable tool I’ve found to assist in the quest. I use it daily, and I hope that it will be as helpful for you as it has been for me.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Anger often gets a bad rap. Of course it’s no secret why. Within the past several months television cameras have beamed around the world shots of a leading female professional tennis player threatening a line judge and a Congressman yelling out that the President is a liar, not capturing these individuals’ best moments.
These incidents are the latest round of newsmaking outbursts, unseating previous episodes like actors assaulting members of the press or fellow bar-goers and the highly publicized story of a cell-phone thrown by a supermodel.
