The more effectively you can master your mindset and how you approach the world around you, the more successful you can be and the better your outlook on life can become.
Today’s post is by Kavita Sahai, CEO and Founder of Have BIGplans, LLC.
“The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character.” – Ancient Proverb
Are you struggling to master your mindset? Success boils down to the way you think, as the proverb suggests. More and more research is supporting the power of positivity.
We create the reality around us, and by taking steps to be more positive, we can master our own domain.
Mastering Your Thoughts
A recent study conducted by the Journal of Research in Personality examined a group of 90 students split into two groups. One group wrote about a positive experience each day for three days, while the other group wrote about a control topic.
Three months later, the students who wrote about positive experiences enjoyed better moods, fewer visits to the school health center and fewer illnesses.
Start Keeping a Gratitude Journal
So how do you harness the power of positivity? By expressing gratitude. Record five things to be grateful for each day. As you keep a journal, being grateful for the abundance of good in your life will come more naturally. This “glass half full” mentality has been proven to foster happiness and success.
Get Enough Exercise
150 minutes of exercise a week is one of the most effective ways to boost your mental health. Getting regular exercise improves memory, relieves stress, boosts overall mood and helps you sleep better. See https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/summary.aspx for more details on the benefits of exercise.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230918-Mindfulness-Paper.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2023-09-18 08:02:002023-09-18 00:02:00The Power of Mastering Your Mindset
Sitting on the balcony of our apartment in New Westminster, Canada, I hold my baby boy and reflect on the past few months. After everything that happened, I’m amazed that I made it through without breaking down mentally. I recall founding a new business while my girlfriend navigated a challenging pregnancy, and my father fought terminal cancer.
My emotions were erratic, and I felt pulled in different directions, trying to be present for my girlfriend, dad, mom, and clients all at the same time. Things spiraled downward, and my father passed away shortly before the birth of my son. I was overcome by a mix of grief and joy, and at the same time, we relocated from Germany to Canada amidst the start of a global pandemic.
This was in the Spring of 2020, and I realized that a few mindset shifts helped me navigate these challenging months. Adjusting your mindset allows you to focus on thinking smarter, more complex, with more ingenuity, and finding multiple paths to success. Let’s explore four mindset shifts that will help you succeed.
Embrace JOMO, because YOLO
The first shift is from FOMO to JOMO. The fear of missing out is that feeling when everyone around you is raving about a new artist, and you feel like the only one who hasn’t heard of them. But you buy tickets, just in case, because everyone else is doing it, and you don’t want to miss out.
If we allow fear to drive our decisions, we waste our biggest asset, our attention, on things that don’t matter. In business, this can lead to poor job performance, lack of career advancement, or even job loss. On a corporate level, FOMO can lead to “me-too” strategies, with companies copying whatever their competition does first. However, success comes from clarity, direction, and differentiation, not copying others.
To shift from FOMO to JOMO, the joy of missing out, we need to define our priorities in life and business. Writing them down helps us crystallize our thinking, understand what matters to us, and how we can achieve our goals. This becomes our go-to resource for decision-making, as we evaluate opportunities based on whether they help us reach our goals.
Overcoming Perfectionism with Speed and Agility
The second mindset shift is moving away from perfectionism and towards speed and agility. As a strategy facilitator, my role is to assist businesses in achieving their future goals. When clients ask me how long it takes to create the perfect business strategy, I tell them the truth: it’s impossible to achieve perfection. We can align a business around an 80 percent strategy and leave the remaining 20 percent for uncertainty. This gives us enough direction to get started and make progress.
In business and personal situations, we must be able to adapt quickly when unexpected events occur. When COVID-19 first hit, we had to decide: wait it out, or pull our relocation to Canada forward, and move within days. Our perfectly planned relocation had to make space for a new reality: we acted swiftly and learned as we navigated the uncertainty of moving to a new continent under lockdown conditions. Prioritizing speed and agility over perfectionism will help you move forward, learn from mistakes, and succeed over time.
From Scarcity to Abundance Thinking
The third mindset shift is from scarcity to abundance. In business, an abundance mindset is crucial for creating a winning strategy. It’s about exploring possibilities, curiosity, and daring to dream. It’s about creating hope. Allowing ourselves to be in an abundance mindset will bring about new perspectives, thoughts, and discussions that were previously unclear to us because we listen deeply and build on each other’s creativity.
Abundance also helped me deal with the emotional rollercoaster in 2020. While I traditionally dealt with my emotions by myself, I wanted to seek out additional resources this time. It might sound obvious, but my next move was a sign that I was starting to embrace an abundance mindset. I reached out to a psychologist. As an additional resource in my life, she helped me sort the emotions and embrace both joy of being a dad, while still mourning the loss of my own father.
From Fixed to Growth Mindset
The last shift is from a fixed to a growth mindset. Instead of thinking in limited terms and absolutes, a growth mindset allows us to see mistakes as learning opportunities. Instead of thinking “I failed” or “I’ll never make it,” we can find new ways of doing things and try something different without giving up. When I was younger, I had a fixed mindset, and I struggled with understanding many things. However, I realized I could do something about it and became an avid reader and embraced learning to overcome my fixed mindset.
Instead of making statements and trying to fit things into what we already know, we should ask questions like “What am I missing?” or “How could I use this negative experience and turn it into something positive?” In a growth mindset, we understand that nothing is too hard. By adding perspective and time, we can figure things out, even if we don’t know how at first.
Making Mindset Shifts Happen
How can we implement these mindset shifts in our lives and where would they be most useful? Adam Grant, a leading organizational psychologist, suggests two concepts: challenge networks and confident humility.
A challenge network is a group of people around us who can disagree with us in a constructive way, providing honest feedback without being aggressive. They help us question our assumptions, identify blind spots, and counterbalance potential weaknesses in our thinking. By building a reliable challenge network, we can tackle speed and agility in execution and learning.
Confident humility is having faith in our capabilities while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or may not be addressing the right problem. It involves having enough doubt to re-examine our old knowledge and enough confidence to pursue new insights.
Implementing these mindset shifts can have a significant impact on our lives. Embracing JOMO helped me avoid distractions in business and prioritize what mattered, resulting in more quality time with my family. Adopting an abundance mindset allowed me to see options that would have otherwise been invisible when starting a new business. A growth mindset helped me rise to the challenge of being a first-time dad in my mid-40s. Finally, speed and agility helped us avoid overthinking and instead move to Canada, even under the most challenging circumstances.
To implement these mindset shifts, we need to have faith in our capabilities while being open to new insights. By doing so, we can transform hopes and dreams into reality and create winning strategies in both business and our personal lives.
Alex Brueckmann is the founder and CEO of Brueckmann Executive Consulting, and the author of “Secrets of Next-Level Entrepreneurs” and “The Strategy Legacy” (Fall 2023). He is a keynote speaker at the intersection of business strategy, leadership, and empowerment. Brueckmann is an alumnus of EBS European Business School (Germany), and holds certificates in change management, leadership, finance, organizational development, and strategy from INSEAD (France), and Harvard Business School (USA).
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Imposter Syndrome is the belief that we don’t believe we deserve the job we’re in or the success we achieve. To overcome it, become aware of what’s letting you down and allowing these intrusive thoughts into your mind. That awareness enables you to shift your perspective and start being kinder to, and more patient with, yourself.
Today’s post is by Ethan Lee of Inspiring Interns.
Imposter Syndrome is a term that was coined in the late 1970’s from research carried out by Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. Their researched showed that many high-achieving women tended to believe they were not intelligent enough and were being over-evaluated by others. Imposter Syndrome has therefore come to describe the feelings of people who, quite simply, don’t believe they deserve their job. Those exhibiting the syndrome believe that deep down they are frauds, and fear that sooner or later they’ll be exposed.
It’s thought that most of us will feel like an imposter at some point or another in our careers, with studies suggesting around 70% of us will experience the feeling sooner or later. While it’s not necessarily harmful in and of itself, the dangers arise when these feelings make you apprehensive, and hold you back from fulfilling the upper echelons of your potential.
Like all problems in both your personal and professional lives, understanding where they may be stemming from is a great place to start. There are myriad reasons that could be causing your imposter syndrome, but here are just some ideas:
You feel inexperienced
This is a likely scenario for younger workers, graduates, career changers and generally people who are prone to a weakened sense of self-worth or self-appreciation. The notion that you’re not automatically worthy of something can be a good thing in moderation, keeping you grounded, humble, and realistic about your goals and capabilities. When these thoughts are consistent and intrusive, however, they’ll certainly begin to be a distraction, and damage your performance in the long term.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230220-Stressed-Worker.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2023-02-20 08:02:362023-02-20 05:34:39How to Deal with Imposter Syndrome at Work
When it comes to making career decisions, we’ve all been to “the dark side.”
Endless pro-con lists. Sleepless nights. Emotional rollercoasters. Circular conversations. Worrying if this is our “one shot” while simultaneously wondering if we’re settling or worth more. Trying to balance the shiny components of the offer, maintain a level head, remember to negotiate, and keep every other generic piece of career advice front of mind.
Cue confusion, anxiety, doubt, and fear.
But what if there was a way to ensure that every decision you made in your career was in your best, long-term interest? What if you could wade through the emotions and momentary elation and get down to brass tacks: Will this work for me or is this just another distraction?
In the moment, it can be so difficult to separate what really matters from how we are currently feeling. After all, no matter if we’re being offered the CEO role or a part-time consulting position, there are so many emotions at play.
It’s human nature to feel compelled to pursue something that we’re offered. Even if the offer is coming from left field (hello, Mr. CMO, would you like to design a logo for me?) there’s something about an opportunity showing up on your doorstep that begs the question: Am I supposed to take this?
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230213-Doorbell.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2023-02-13 09:13:142023-02-13 09:13:14How to Make “Easy Button” Career Decisions
When most people think of balance at work, they think of work/life balance. Learn about a new type of balance—work/work balance.
Leading a balanced life is a critical aspect of performing well as a leader. And there are two types of balance. We always think about work-life balance in terms of how much time we spend away from the office. But there’s another kind of balance that I encourage you to think about. I call it work/work balance. We need a balance of work that we love to do to balance out the work that we don’t enjoy doing. Because if those get out of balance, we’re gonna be miserable at work. And you probably spend more hours at the office than you do away from it with your friends and your family.
To achieve this work/work balance, you need to set boundaries. Because without boundaries, people are going to violate them all the time. You’re going to be upset, they’re going to be upset, and nobody’s going to know why. So we need to draw those lines. One of my maxims to remind me to set those boundaries is, “I’m going home, you’re doing my job.” This maxim reminds me of a situation where I had a boss who was a bit of a micromanager.
My boss came in one day, very well intended, and got in front of my desk. He said, “Hey Mike, I want you to start thinking about this and this and this and working on that.” I tried to stop him to say, “I have this,” but he kept going. He said, “And think about this and to do that and think about this project.” He kept going on and on.
I kept trying to interrupt, but I was unsuccessful in doing so. The reason I wanted to interrupt was because I had a whiteboard on my wall behind him, and on that whiteboard was every project he was ticking off. Along with the status of it. As he was talking, I was ticking down that list.
I wanted to tell him that I had it covered. But it became clear that I wasn’t going to get my point across so I picked up my briefcase, I put my laptop in it while he was still talking, and put my bag on my shoulder. He had a moment where he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going home, you’re doing my job.”
He looked at me a bit puzzled. I said, “Turn around and look at the whiteboard.” He turned around and he looked at the whiteboard. He said, “Okay, I get it.” And I said, “Look, I love working for you. I love getting to do these projects, but if you’re gonna come in here and micromanage me, I’m not going to be satisfied with that work environment, so let me do the work. Now this is on me—I haven’t updated you well on the projects and I’ll try to do a better job of that going forward.”
I had a very good relationship with this boss so it wasn’t really a career limiting move, but I drew a very firm boundary. I said for me to be satisfied with the work that I do, I need to have a certain amount of control and self-direction over that.
So as you think about your work, I’d like you to think about work that you love to do. What separates it? What is it that’s so special about it that you are really excited to go do it? Then think about work you don’t enjoy doing. How do you create a boundary between them? How do you draw a balance to make sure that you’re still getting enough of the work you love to do to balance out the stuff that you’re less satisfied with?
Think about a situation where you were able to clarify that boundary for somebody and get more of the work you enjoy doing. That story about drawing that boundary is good fodder for your maxim on creating work/work balance. If you’re able to then adhere to that maxim and communicate it to others, you’ll be much more satisfied with the work that you do.
Want to learn more about developing your leadership philosophy? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to develop your leadership philosophy. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Internalizing these four aspects of leadership is a great first step in developing your personal leadership philosophy.
When articulating your leadership philosophy, you need to think beyond the leader led diad. A lot of times we get focused on, “Well, this is how I interact with a person and that’s what leadership is about.” As a leader, you need to look at yourself more completely as an individual in a variety of domains. As I’ve looked at leadership and tried to be more complete in the thinking about it, there are really four aspects of leadership that I invite you to think about:
Leading Yourself
First is leading yourself. Where are you going? What’s important to you? What are your personal ethical standards? What are the beliefs that underpin how you’re going to interact with the members of your team?
Leading the Thinking
Next is leading the thinking. As the leader, you need to set the direction for where the team is headed. You need to articulate behavioral standards for what you will and won’t stand for from the members of your team.
Leading Your People
Next is leading your people, and we need to lead people as individuals. You can’t treat them as faceless cogs in the machine because that won’t inspire them or get the best performance out of them. Leading your people is all about understanding what their personal wants and needs are and what motivates them.
Leading a Balanced Life
The last aspect of leadership is leading a balanced life because if you’re burned out, you’re worthless to the members of your team. Additionally, as a leader, you set the tone, so you’re going to set an example on balance. Making sure that you stay in balance is important to making sure the team stays in balance.
Developing Your Leaderships Maxims
Now, a maxim is a principle or rule of conduct. Across these four aspects of leadership, you’re going to articulate your personal leadership maxims. A maxim is a short, pithy statement that serves as a reminder for how you want to behave. They need to be emotionally resonant for you. They need to stir up strong feelings because those strong feelings are going to drive you to behave in a certain way. The maxim needs to be simple enough that you can explain the story behind it to the members of your team because you’re going to give them a window into what’s important and exciting and inspiring to you. It’s going to help them understand how you behave. You were in a situation previously that led to this set of feelings, and if you’re in a similar situation, you’re going to behave in that consistent manner. No buzzwords, no consult-o-speak, and they’re going to be a reflection of you at a specific point in time.
Your maxims should grow as you grow and have new experiences as a leader. In terms of where you can find your maxims, you already know all the answers. I’m just here to give you the tools to be able to pull them out. Maxims can come from situations where you interacted with somebody important to you. It can be a boss, a family member, or a coach who said something so profound and so inspiring to you that you say, “There’s real emotional resonance for me in that.” Maxims can come from situations you found yourself in as a leader or a member of a team that really meant a great deal to you. Maxims are sometimes found in stories, in song, in poetry, in scripture, things that moved you, and you don’t even have to be sure why it moved you. It just did move you, and it became a fundamental belief that you have.
Maxims are all around you. You need to go back inside. Go back into your prior history and think about those situations that really meant a great deal for you. Then, create the trigger that reminds you of that situation or the phrase or the words that were actually used by that person who was meaningful to you. That phrase and that situation is what’s going to guide your behavior going forward. You’re then going to create your leadership maxims across all the aspects of leadership, and the sum of those maxims becomes your personal leadership philosophy.
Want to learn more about developing your leadership philosophy? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to develop your leadership philosophy. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
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Studies show that the happier your team is, the more productive they will be. Here are simple strategies to keep them energized.
Today’s post is by William Vanderbloemen, author of Culture Wins (CLICK HERE to get your copy).
More and more studies are showing that how we feel about our work impacts how we feel about ourselves, our personal and professional relationships, and our job performance.
Successful companies are wising up to this and nurturing our mind/body connection and seeing a boost in higher quality work, retention and results.
Still not convinced?
Think of it this way: If you buy two pairs of running shoes and switch them off, they’ll last longer. The same is true with your staff. Give your team time to reset during busy work seasons, and they’ll be energized to do more work quicker and better.
Here are four simple strategies to having work and life not only coexist, but get along, and see great results:
Hit the gym
Organizations with a healthy work culture encourage their team members to be healthy themselves.
Give your employees the resources to take care of themselves. Provide a gym membership. Schedule a trainer to come to the office so people can work out while getting paid (not squeezing in during a lunch hour). Or, have a fitness challenge. People can train together for a race or see who can log the most steps in a month.
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Multitasking doesn’t work. It’s only through true focus that you can make meaningful progress on your work. By using the four aspects of focus, you can excel at any task you put your mind to.
Let’s face it. Pretty much every facet of our work lives conspires against us staying focused. We rush from one meeting to the next. We have too many emails to answer in any given moment. There are days when it seems we do nothing but respond to last-minute requests and fly by the seat of our pants.
And yet, the leader who stays focused is the one who creates exponentially more success.
Focus, at its very best, is our exquisite commitment to a goal, and our full engagement with the process of attaining this goal. Before we explore some common-sense focus practices, let go, once and for all, of the notion that multi-tasking works. Yes, you know how to do it. You are likely quite good at it. Research, however, consistently shows that multi-tasking dilutes the effectiveness of the tasks we perform. We tend to confuse motion with achievement. Instead of our relentless focus on achievement, why not focus on the art of focus?
One activity at a time is a fine place to begin. Successful focus, however, is defined by the levels of awareness you and I bring to the performance of this single activity. The following four aspects of focus help us shift from the purely transactional performance of a task to a deeply conscious engagement with this task:
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/20220815-Man-Using-Laptop.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-08-15 08:00:512022-08-15 02:25:00How to Harness the 4 Aspects of Focus
If you’re not mindful of the direction your life is headed, you might end up somewhere you’re unhappy with. Be deliberate and intentional about where you’re headed. Answer this set of four questions to get a better sense of your direction.
We all face crossroads moments in our lives and careers, those times when we feel compelled to change direction. Those choice points most often arise because we feel inspired to embark on a new adventure or we’re desperate to change the situation we’re in. One of my biggest choice points came seventeen years ago, when I realized that if I didn’t change the bus I was riding on, I might not even be around to have a life and a career.
At the time, I was in my late thirties. I was running my own coaching and consulting practice, starting a new women’s leadership company, and I was going to graduate school, consistently working seventy to eighty weeks. I was employed as a consultant on a change management project for a division of Fortune 500 Company, partnering with a Vice President named Ellen to help to “humanize” her organization. Ellen and I had developed a close friendship over the two years we’d worked together on the project. She’d become a corporate mentor to me and I, an informal coach to her.
One day in late September, Ellen and I met for lunch. She was reeling from her performance review earlier that morning that hadn’t gone well. Working 24/7 with little support, Ellen had single-handedly attempted to change the culture of her organization. Her efforts threatened her boss and some of the senior leadership team as their hierarchical and dictatorial approach to power was exposed and beginning to break down.
I’d never seen Ellen look so hopeless or physically drained. She was sweating profusely and was having a difficult time focusing on our conversation. Led by my concern for her well-being, I told Ellen how concerned I was about her health, then proceeded to tear a piece of paper off the top of the tablecloth and wrote, “Rx for Ellen. Take 3 days off, leave your cell phone at home, and go to a monastery and rest.” Ellen read the note, wadded up the paper, shoved it her purse and said, “Stop worrying about me, Donna, I’m fine! I don’t want to discuss this anymore!”
I paid the check and we said goodbye. Although I knew something was terribly wrong, I had no idea it would be the last conversation I’d ever have with Ellen. Read more
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/20220620-Two-Buses.jpg?fit=1920%2C1281&ssl=112811920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-06-20 13:34:322022-06-20 13:33:34Be Careful Which Bus You Get On: Having a Fulfilling Life and Career
Creativity is a skill that can be built like any other. Understanding your passion and challenging the voices in your head that say “no” are a great way to start.
Maybe it’s disingenuous to say that each of us has the potential to be a creative genius. Gifts of personality are dispensed in varied measures at birth. Humans are tangled balls of social conditioning, reactions to environment, and serendipity. Life isn’t fair. Luck plays a part. We’ve all heard someone say, “I was in the right place at the right time” or “I never get lucky.”
As far as creativity is concerned, most people believe you’ve either got it or you don’t. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard someone say wistfully, “I’m not creative.” When I hear a statement like that, I think to myself, “No one has ever shown you where to begin.”
Because the fact is, creativity, like any skill, can be cultivated. It takes a healthy combination of self-knowledge and stamina.
Athletes have an advantage: prescribed methods of building stamina, because physical prowess is revered by our culture. Hire a personal trainer and you’ll start with a series of exercises done repetitively – gradually adding reps as the body gains strength. Exercise is specific, varied, and involves what’s called cross training. One day a session of running to work cardio. Next time? Yoga to maximize flexibility. A steady, balanced program of activity keeps the human machine functioning at its optimal level.
So what about the rest of us? How can we engage creatively with what we care about – whether it’s a job or an avocation? And just as important – how can we identify what works against building creative stamina in every aspect of our lives?
I teach artists how to build stamina through what I call “creativity strength training” but the fact is, the lessons apply to everyone.
Here are three aspects of thinking more creatively each of us can embrace.
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Stories are a great way to connect with your customer. They can make the ordinary product or service you’re selling extraordinary by adding richness and experience to the sale.
In May of 2015, my wife Lisa convinced me to attend a juried art fair with her at Coney Island in Cincinnati, Ohio. As an artist herself, she has a sophisticated appreciation for fine art that I don’t. She can spend hours on end lazily drifting from one booth to the next, studying each piece and talking to the artists about their inspiration, medium, and techniques. Me, I just like to look at the pictures.
As the day dragged on, we arrived at the booth of Chris Gug (pronounced “Goog”), a photographer known for his awe-inspiring images of marine life. His gallery is full of breathtaking underwater shots of anemones, corals, sea turtles, and whales. On a mission to find a piece for our boys’ bathroom at home, Lisa eyed a picture that, to me, looked about as out of place as a pig in the ocean.
It was a picture of a pig in the ocean.
She described it as inspired genius—a cute little baby piglet, up to its nostrils in salt water, snout covered with sand, dog-paddling its way straight into the camera lens.
I thought it was a picture of a pig in the ocean.
I asked the artist what on Earth that pig was doing in the ocean. And that’s when the magic started.
Gug explained that the picture was taken in the Caribbean, just off the beach of an uninhabited Bahamian island officially named Big Major Cay. He told us that years ago, a local entrepreneur brought a drove of pigs to the island to raise for bacon. Gug went on:
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220502-Pig-Bahamas.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-05-02 08:00:252022-05-02 04:56:41What We All Need to Learn About Sales – From a Pig
I wrote my most recent book, What Keeps Leaders Up At Night, on a barstool at my kitchen counter. The day I started chapter 3, a chapter about stress, my neighbor started construction on her house. When I say “construction,” I mean a complete demolition that started at 5 AM and continued well into the night. The contractors enjoyed screaming profanities as loud as they could, blasting music, and doing the loudest possible work either very early in the morning or really late at night. The screaming. The hammering. The noise!
After a week, I was living in a state of chronic agitation, “grrrr-ing” throughout the day, not sleeping well at night, anticipating being awoken by a jackhammer or drill that would feel like it was inside my brain. My concentration and thinking were so shot that I couldn’t think, let alone write. In hindsight, I probably should have gone elsewhere to work, but I couldn’t think clearly. I was stuck in a state of stress-induced stupidity and mired in rage. My state of existence became a stream of fragmented grunts and groans. I lacked the brainpower to change the situation, to think: “Go to a coffee shop or your office, Nicole.” The deadline for chapter 3 was fast approaching.
Prolonged, chronic stress often causes relative stupidity. Today’s business environment is saturated with “low-grade fevers:” financial problems, overwork, job dissatisfaction, jackhammers, drills, information overload and a host of other issues. Amazingly enough, though our brains are capable of dealing with sudden acute stress, they don’t fare so well with chronic stress, i.e., the endless little yipping Chihuahuas that prompt what psychologists call the long-term fight/flight response.
Our stress response triggers hormone secretion (especially mood-altering cortisol) and the perceptions of a given threat determine the type and amount of hormones the endocrine system will dispense. A steady bombardment of blinking lights, phone beeps, email alerts, and personal/professional obligations build up a chemical cocktail that keeps our bodies in a constant state of edginess, impairing memory, thinking and learning. Left unnoticed or ignored, this condition increases the odds that you will end up with serious mental and/or physical health problems, or in my case, pure stupidity.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20220404-Stressed-Woman-at-Laptop.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-04-04 08:00:592022-04-04 00:45:38The Role Stress Plays in Stupidity
