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Category Archive: Personal Leadership

How To Effectively Manage Your Stress

Posted by on October 11, 2017

Over the years I have been able to sustain excellence in the most stressful situations. As a matter of fact, that was my greatest strength and contribution to the organization. I have noticed over the last few years that the margin I have between demand and capacity is razor thin. What used to be normal stress levels can now become overwhelming. This HBR post is very helpful:

“Jack is well-known in his company for delivering growth through high-performing, cross-functional teams. Where others get stuck in silos, he fosters innovation through collaboration. But these days, when you exit the elevator on his floor, you sense fear wafting through the halls. He’s nine months into a new role as Business Unit Leader, and a lot has changed.”

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How To Truly Lead Your Life

Posted by on September 29, 2017

I often need as an executive coach to enter into conversations on all of the important differences between leadership and management. In an organization, knowing the distinctions and valuing both roles is critical. However, no one gets a pass based on a personality assessment of being the leader of their own life. This Forbes post is excellent:

“I would like to start this post with a challenge to one of our most basic assumptions. We are accustomed to thinking ourselves as individuals: as self-contained, uniform entities. I’m an individual with my own thoughts, feelings, needs, values, skills, knowledge, and talents.”

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Five Consequences Of A Life Out Of Balance

Posted by on September 22, 2017

This may be the single most talked about topic that I encounter in all of my executive coaching. The demands of our careers leave little margin for the other things that really matter the most in life. It takes an incredible amount of character to be willing to define your own core values and then live by them. This Michael Hyatt post is incredible:

“If you are working more than 55 hours a week, you are working too much and likely out of balance. You may be able to keep this up for a season, but it is not sustainable. In fact, if you keep working so much, something will eventually break. And the sooner you come to terms with this, the better.”

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How To Work Smarter Not Harder

Posted by on September 18, 2017

I always get caught with the tension of spending time learning some new technology that will help me and the reality of needing immediate results. However, after making the commitment to becoming proficient with some personal project management software my life is significantly more productive. I am not interested in just doing the wrong things faster and this Fast Company post hits all the issues:

“Possibly no piece of productivity advice is more well-worn than the adage, “Work smarter, not harder.” Of course, the directive points to the fact that it’s not how many hours you put in at your desk that matters—it’s how you spend your time there. In other words, get results faster and you won’t be spending so many late nights at the office.”

But what does it really mean to work smarter?

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Nine Strategies To Reduce Stress

Posted by on August 18, 2017

The inability to sustain margin may be the biggest challenge we face in this always on world we live in. It seems like the demands of work and home always exceed our capacity to meet them. Since so many factors are outside of my control, I must discipline myself to own the choices I can make. This post by the Coaches Council was very helpful:

“Stress is a part of life, especially business life. There are simply too many things that require your attention, which means that it’s far too easy to get overwhelmed, or worn down, by worries about the consequences of poor choices or imagined futures.

Managing stress, therefore, is vital, especially when you’re managing others. Teams look to their leads for direction, and people will pick up on signs that things aren’t right.”

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Overcome The Fear That's Holding You Back

Posted by on July 24, 2017

A reactive mindset at its core is that circumstances are the reason we are the way we are and not the choices we make everyday. This lack of ability to proactively lead ourselves creates a fear that paralyzes us and we get stuck in unhealthy places. This post by Michael Hyatt gives us a path forward:

“Many of us know what it’s like to feel stuck in our careers. We settle into a particular role and one day we look up and wonder why we’ve spent so long doing something we’re not fully invested in. There are many reasons why this happens, but a big one is fear of failure. We know we can do this one thing, and we don’t want to risk bellyflopping if we try something else.”

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How To Know What's Important: Calendars and Checkbooks

Posted by on June 18, 2017

We all want to accomplish the things that are really important in life and learn the discipline to walk away from everything else. Most of us have not taken the time to write down specific goals in a life plan that involves everything personal, family, faith, friends and our professional lives. Best practice Living Forward by Michael Hyatt.

So how do we know if we are just filling our schedules with things to do without any serious evaluation or if those are the things that should even be done at all? We don’t want to get to the end of our lives and look back realizing that a lot of our time was totally wasted on things that don’t really matter.

A great place to start is to evaluate how we are spending our time and our money. Calendars can tell us a lot about our core values and priorities because they reflect the choices we are making. No doubt some of our time is not our own to schedule but how we are spending a large percentage of it reflects what is really a priority and what is not.

Are you making time for the people and relationships that you care about the most or are they getting the leftovers at best? If you really want to know, take the time to track how you are spending your time for at least a month. You will be amazed how much of it is scheduled based on what appears to be urgent at the time but in the end is not really important at all.

The next big indicator of what is a priority in our lives is to look at how we are spending our finances. If we are living beyond our means and accumulating unnecessary debt then we have a major character problem that must be addressed.

More stress is brought into marriage by this one area than almost anything else. The only solution is again to write down a budget that includes all of your expenses and then have the discipline to post all your transactions and make necessary adjustments to live within your income.

You may think this sounds like way too much work to me and I am already busy enough. Trust me you are already using calendars and checkbooks anyway but you may not be gaining any of the benefits of leading your life instead of just letting it happen.

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How To Stop Taking Work Stress Out On Your Family

Posted by on June 14, 2017

By the very nature of our work we have to be on almost all of the time. We put up with a lot of drama and the productivity demands alone build up tremendous stress. If we don’t develop habits that allow us to come home with some emotional margin, we will take all of that frustration out on the people who matter most. Amy Morin has two great proven strategies:

“Do you ever come home irritable because you had a rough day at the office? Do you take out your frustrations from work on your family? If so, you’re not alone. It’s an issue I address in my therapy office often. I hear from parents who are disappointed in themselves for yelling at their children. I also hear from spouses who are tired of walking on eggshells in an effort to avoid becoming the undeserving target of an entire days’ worth of frustration and anger.”

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What The Best Leaders Learn From Hate And Hypocrisy

Posted by on May 1, 2017

Many years ago I learned a very painful but valuable lesson. It started with the realization that I could so easily see the negative things in others but was totally blind to the flaws in my own life. The lesson is the bitter truth that one of the reasons we can see things so clearly in others is that those same issues live within us. This Forbes post is very revealing:

“A few years ago, I was on an executive retreat with 10 friends, all of whom run successful businesses. The idea was that we would learn from one another about how to grow our companies and deal with the challenges we faced.

John Drury, who became an executive coach after selling his advertising agency, served as our moderator. In an exercise that I will never forget, he asked us to list three adjectives to define the person we admire most.”

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Why Highly Productive People Use "Time Blocking"

Posted by on April 26, 2017

The movement toward multitasking felt like progress but in reality it was the worst possible thing for overall productivity . Yes, during some times of the day I still use it but the game changer for me was the idea of blocking times for work that requires a deep dive without several interruptions. This post by Abby Lawson is excellent:

“Would you like to learn the secret to becoming insanely productive? Productivity and organization go hand-in-hand. When we get busy or face times of stress, it’s easy to let things slide. And before you know it, your desk and habits are in disarray. “Time blocking” is a method that just might help you avoid those moments of chaos, and keep your mind and office clear.”

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