Monthly Archives: October 2014

Learn and Use the Plus 1 Technique: Do the thing you are afraid to do now…

Daily Quote:

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face…You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Reflection: Fear is just part of life. I have found out that your problems don’t just go away by ignoring them. You must step-up and take the action you are avoiding. For example, you have a big presentation next week that you are not prepared for and keep putting off the preparation because you rationalize that you I have given this presentation many times before and you are expert on the topic to be discussed. Stop take a breath and face the truth that this is a make and break presentation for next level of funding. Face your fear and push through it now.

Self-Coaching Challenge: Identify a fear you are struggling with and take one small step today to confront your fear and then observe how you feel about your progress and set out your next step to complete. This is what I call the Plus 1 technique for personal change.   

Free Self-Coaching Module: Identifying and Exploring Your Strengths for Next Job Interview

Self-Coaching Workbook: I have designed the Self-Directed Learning guide for you to use over 90 days but in fact you can use it in any manner you choose that’s the beauty of self-directed coaching – Workbook contains 10  Self-Coaching Modules and over 25 different self-awareness and experiential activities and exercises.  On each day, I’ll present a new activity, tell you which ability it’s aimed at boosting, and explain its purpose. The rest is up to you.

Module #1 Exploring Strengths: Open Chair Exercise 

Instructions:

1. Place two empty chairs facing each other about two feet a part.

2. Imagine you are interviewing for a very important job.

3. Sit-in one of the chairs and imagine you are the interviewer and ask out loud looking directly at the empty chair what are the five strengths this person will bring to the company?

4. Now move to the other chair and answer the strengths question? What strengths will you bring to the company?

5. Continue the conversation moving back and forth playing both roles until you have finished the interview.

Reflection:

Stop the interaction and reflect on what you learned about yourself and preparation for the interview by considering the following questions:

  •  What was challenging about identifying and explaining your strengths to the interviewer?
  • How comfortable on a 1-10 scale did you feel at the start, in the middle and at the end of the interview?
  • As the Interviewer–How did you feel and what did you think about the candidate’s ability to identify in clear way their strengths?
  • What was you first impression of the interviewee as the interviewer and vice-versa?
  • What assumptions did you make during about the interview about the candidate and their  explanation of their strengths?
  • Did you feel stuck during the interview? What role were you playing when this happened?  How did you get through this stuck time?
  • What examples or stories did you use to explain your strengths ?
  • Do you think you convinced the interviewer that you well suited for the job? Why? Why Not?
  • How did taking the role and talking from the interviewer’s point of view and then answering from interviewee’s position — help enlighten or block you from proceeding in the conversation.
  • Did taking the interviwer’s role help you clarify and attune your message?
  • What lessons can you apply to your own present-day interviewing situations?

Self-Coaching Challenge:  Create a list of 5 strengths that make you the best candidate for any job that ignites your passion. Include the reason why these are your strengths.

Telling the Truth to Yourself–Learn about the Growth Mindset

Daily Quote: “Studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities. Recently, we set out to see who is most likely to do this. Sure, we found that people greatly misestimated their performance and their ability. But it was those with the fixed mindset who accounted for almost all the inaccuracy. The people with the growth mindset were amazingly accurate. When you think about it, this makes sense. If, like those with the growth mindset, you believe you can develop yourself, then you’re open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it’s unflattering.”
― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential

One Pitfall to avoid as a Presenter–Focus on Listening and Why of your “big idea”

” As speakers we naturally believe that our audiences should listen to us. But how well are we listening to our audience? Believe it or not, that’s the key to really connecting with an audience”. Toastmasters International 

Connecting and engaging with your audience in a “give and listen” manner depends on your ability to create a two-way communication process. One way to enhance this type of dialogue is to explain the WHY of your ideas to the audience not the HOW…

A lot of times, as the presenter, you know your material so well that you think you’re making each key point clear. You might not be. Your need to make sure you are telling people why the point you are making is relevant and important for them to understand. It’s the “why” around our ideas that make them spread, not the “how”. Articulate the why so your audience understands what’s magnificent about your big idea.

Why Managing Energy and not Time key to Healthy Life style and Life Balance

When we say we do not have enough time for something, we are really saying it isn’t a priority in our daily activities or that by the time we get to it in a day full of activities and stuff you don’t have enough energy to complete this activity. Want to turn this excuse around listen to and read The Power of Full Engagement by Dr. James Loehr and Tony Scwartz

Just saying– 

” Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.” – Peter Drucker

 

“Inspiration that doesn’t result from action quickly dies-off and that is why inspirational speeches and motivational seminars are so often belittled as a waste of time and money.”

Use science help information based on solid research to benchmark changes you want to make in your life. For example, learn how to develop more “grit” or mental toughness by creating more positive effort in learning new stuff. Reading and practicing some of the tips from this article by By Emily Diehl, Mindset Works Curriculum and Professional Learning Associate. By the way she is a colleague of  Dr. Carol Dweck, author of  growth Mindset. The information in this article will help you get on the right path for making more effective practice sessions  be it in the classroom or on the running track. Good Luck and Enjoy.

http://community.mindsetworks.com/blog-page/home-blogs/entry/getting-started-growth-mindsets-and-effective-effort-in-your-classroom

 

 

 

Self-Coaching Breakthrough:New Era of Brain growth Provides hope for Personal Development

Daily Perspective: Our minds influence the key activity of the brain, which then influences everything; perception, cognition, thoughts and feelings, personal relationships; they’re all a projection of you. Deepak Chopra, Philosopher 

Self-coaching is a skill that can be learned. It is the basic skill that underlies what we mean when we speak of having emotional and social intelligence. When you develop the skill of SC, you actually change the physical structure of the brain, your thinking and action. Dr. Dan Siegel in the book Mindset says: “This observation and revelation is based on one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the last twenty years: How we focus our attention shapes the structure of the brain which impacts thinking and then behavior. Neuroscience has also definitively shown that we can grow and create new connections in the brain throughout our lives, not just in childhood. ” This finding provides a positivity not known in years before these new brain discoveries.

Self-Coaching Challenge:  Seek first the goal of personal development and reaching your full potential then everything else will take care of itself. What do you want to develop over the next 30 days. Make and plan the execute it.  For support read about Dr. Rock, a noted neuro-leadership scientist,  who has put together a practical model called SCARF for enhancing how to use the new research on the brain to improve leadership and workplace climate.