What if the setback is actually the springboard?

I used to believe things happened in a linear way – first this, then that; one building block upon another in a specific order; cause and effect.

I’ve since realized that achieving a larger vision or desire often triggers a chain of seemingly disjointed events that is in reality very connected.

It’s like watching a movie of a glass shattering in reverse motion. The pieces come from all directions, seemingly unrelated, to assemble into a perfect whole.

Each piece is absolutely necessary, in and of itself incomplete and incomprehensibly connected to a bigger picture.

There are often ups and downs and unanticipated occurrences.  And these seemingly divergent paths are absolutely necessary for us to experience the totality of our vision.

Sometimes we’re faced with trials that prepare us as leaders to help others work their way through those challenges – or to learn something we’ll need to know to flourish in our future endeavors.

We may not realize the significance or relevance of these experiences until much later, when in retrospect we become aware of the distinct reason we needed to endure any given challenge, setback, delay, or what originally felt like an irrelevant nuisance.

These obstacles give us a greater perspective on who we are, a larger appreciation for where we’ve been and where we’re going, and compassion for others who experience the same things we have along the way.

In dealing with these challenges, we realize that we’re far greater than we thought we were. And as leaders, we can help others appreciate and leverage their own chaos as well.

Taking the time to connect the dots of your experiences (even the disappointing or frustrating ones) can lead to some powerful insights about what life may be preparing you for.

It can also generate the resilience and regeneration necessary to work through those obstacles with greater ease and grace.

What’s irritating you right now?

Perhaps the experience you’d rather put behind you contains the very thing you need to get where you ultimately want to go.

The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed Fast Track program kicking off on September 20 can help you make the most of anything life throws at you – not only for yourself but also in service to others. Here’s what Karen Kurtz of Dolese had to say about it:

“What I liked most about The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed Program was that it gave me “permission” to take time out of my day to think about leadership, productivity, habits, etc. and really dig inside and reflect on obstacles that were preventing me from moving forward and the tools I could use to overcome them. The program goes beyond simple leadership principles and jargon and really helps you look inward into what you want and what you want to be. I would recommend it to anyone who needs to sharpen their tool belt and reconnect with their true leadership style.”

For more information or to save your spot, go to UnleashtheExtraordinary.com.

Here’s to your success!

Diane

P.S. Attend with a friend or colleague and you’ll both save $500 on the cost of registration.

Do you work for an organization that has a budget for leadership development? Download the business case for completing the program, which spells out seven powerful ways your organization will experience a return on its investment

Feeling constrained at work (and life)?

 

If you’ve ever felt like you’re at the mercy of your environment, you may be craving more freedom in your work (and your life). Do you ever…

…feel encumbered by everything on your plate and worry that if you slow down for a minute everything could come crashing down?

…experience pressure to achieve stellar success and believe you’re only as good as your last accomplishment?

…get preoccupied with what people – your boss, peers, subordinates, even your customers think of you and exert a lot of energy trying to manage their perceptions?

…feel constrained by corporate politics and compelled to say and do things to keep yourself safe, while holding back on sharing what you really think (or who you really are)?

Most of us occasionally think and act in ways that keep us feeling trapped because it may seem doing so leads to success (or prevents “failure”). But despite your best efforts, that automatic reaction will keep you from what you most want – and eventually suck the life out of you.

There is a wiser, stronger part of you that’ll show you a better way. It’s present and playful, creative and courageous, and capable of achieving extraordinary things.

We’re conditioned to keep this version of ourselves at bay, though it offers our truest source of sustainable fuel. We often don’t even realize what great lengths we go to hold ourselves down.

What would it look like if you let more of this side yourself come out at work?

Imagine a reality where you…

… are less preoccupied and more present, have clarity to efficiently and effectively get the most important things done, and access innovative solutions that would otherwise elude you.

…are buoyed by energy, enthusiasm and confidence rather than overcome with fear and doubt.

…worry less about what people think of you and enjoy stronger, deeper connections with people who are important to you, allowing you to have greater influence and stronger relationships.

…bring more of who you really are to what you do, allowing your organization and everyone around you to benefit from your unique perspective, talents and wisdom – and through your example unleash the talent and passion of people around you.

That is a state of freedom and flow. And it’s entirely within your reach. The first step is simply to envision what that would feel and look like in your life and open yourself to the possibility of achieving it.

If you’d like some support accessing and sustaining that way of working and living, consider joining me in my upcoming program kicking off on September 20.

The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed Fast Track: The Real Leader’s Guide to Accessing the Freedom & Flow of Your Authentic Genius is a seven-week leadership development program designed for high achieving professionals who are ready to reclaim their freedom, unleash their Genius, and through their example pave the way for others to do the same. Registration is now open.

You can read more about it at UnleashtheExtraordinary.com

P.S. Do you work for an organization that has a budget for leadership development? Download the business case for completing the program, which spells out seven powerful ways your organization will experience a return on its investment.

How to Break Out of Overwhelm and Lighten Your Load

 

 

Have you ever noticed that your experience directly reflects your state of mind?

When you feel heavy and bogged down, everything you do becomes harder and more cumbersome.

You may think the way you feel is a result of your experiences, and that’s true — the more you have to do, the more overwhelmed you’ll feel. But the reverse also applies — the more overwhelmed you feel, the more you are likely to act in ways that exacerbate it. You might procrastinate, overcomplicate things, or waste energy resisting and worrying.

If you focus on evidence suggesting you’ll never rise above the way you are feeling, you’ll trap yourself in vicious circles where you’ll continue to see what you want to rise above and feel the frustration of being unable to break free.

In fact, your frame of mind with everything you do has a direct effect on whether the experience of doing it will be exhilarating and satisfying or frustrating and heavy. 

The stories we tell ourselves have a way of coming true. The way out of the traps we set for ourselves is to start not with our experiences, but our thoughts.

The fundamental shift must come not in what you do, or even how you do it, but what you are thinking, believing and allowing yourself to feel about what you are doing. 

To that end, setting an intention or statement of your desired experience can be very powerful. If you want greater freedom and joy, more meaning and satisfaction, and heightened effectiveness, you must align your thoughts around enjoying those experiences before you even start.

And you need to become diligently aware of the degree to which your thoughts stay aligned with your overarching intention. When they drift, you can return to them, remember what you really want, and align yourself with the state you wish to be in again.

In this way, you can break the vicious cycle of allowing your experiences to bring you down in ways that result in more lousy experiences — and begin anew. Your actions align with your thoughts, and you’ll find yourself coming up with creative ways to simplify, get focused on what is most important, and get it done while enjoying yourself in the process – and sharing your joy with everyone around you.

Looking for a better way to lighten your load?

Check out The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed Fast Track: The Real Leader’s Guide to Accessing the Freedom & Flow of Your Authentic Genius, an exclusive 7-week leadership development program designed to help high achieving (and often overextended) leaders minimize pressure and stress so they can access their best work — and enjoy their lives more both on and off the job.

Registration for the fall session is now open! The program will kick off on Friday 9/20 and go through November 1. Visit UnleashtheExtraordinary.com for more information or to reserve your seat.

Navigating Transitions: From Crossroads to Clarity – COME JOIN ME!

 

Are you at a crossroads, seeking more meaning and fulfillment in your work and life?

Join me on Friday June 21 at 2 pm EDT/11 am PDT for an empowering LinkedIn Live workshop designed to help you transform your insights into actionable reality.

In this dynamic session, you’ll gain valuable tools, approaches, and ideas that you can immediately implement to create positive change.

This workshop will guide you through the process of:

• Understanding the Current State: Explore the widespread desire for change, as many people navigate transitions, seek new opportunities, and strive for greater fulfillment. We’ll touch on the phenomenon of the Great Resignation and what people are truly searching for.

• Identifying Common Traits of Change Makers: Learn what unites those who are ready to forge new paths. Discover how letting go of the familiar and embracing uncertainty can lead to incredible opportunities for personal and professional growth.

• Overcoming Barriers: Address the common obstacles that stand in the way of progress, such as busyness, resistance to change, and self-doubt. Gain insights on how to break free from unfulfilling patterns and move towards your goals with confidence.

• Gaining Clarity and Creating a Vision: Learn practical strategies to slow down, check in with yourself, and connect the dots between your experiences and aspirations. Capture insights and begin honing your vision for the future.

This workshop is perfect for individuals and leaders ready to step into their potential, overcome obstacles, and craft a clear vision for their future. Whether you’re at a personal or professional crossroads, this session will provide you with the inspiration and practical guidance you need to move forward.

Join me and discover how to turn transitions into opportunities for clarity and transformation – register today!  Can’t make it on the 21^st? Register anyway and I’ll send you information on any additional broadcasts.

From DOING to DONE: The Power of Simplicity & Focus

 

You’ve carved out the time, eliminated the distractions, and sat yourself down to finally do that important work you’ve been meaning to get to.  But you just can’t get yourself to start.

Suddenly, all manner of things become more appealing… checking your inbox, thinking about what you’ll eat for lunch (or dinner), reorganizing the piles on your desk.

Before you know it, your time is up, and you feel like you haven’t really accomplished much.

If that sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. I’ve been there too. And I work with executives all the time who have similar experiences.

One of the most common assumptions people have that keeps them from executing is that they won’t be able to do justice to the work in the time they have.  And when projects are large, sometimes they don’t even know where to start.

A confused mind is not a productive one. So, see if you can make things as simple as possible.

Break it down.

And ask yourself, “In the time that I have right now, what does DONE look like?”

Maybe you don’t have to have the whole problem solved or project completed. Perhaps you just need to do some research to find the answers to a few questions, make a couple of calls, or break out the steps you need to take moving forward.

If you can make the expectations you have of yourself realistic, you may find yourself more inclined to jump in (and less prone to distraction or derailment).

This is consistent with Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation, which has been a solid operating principle since the 1960’s.  There are three components:

1) The level of perceived satisfaction you’ll have when you achieve a goal.
Check in with your why. What is it about making progress on this thing you’ve set time aside for that is rewarding? How can you make it meaningful to you?

2) Your belief that the effort you put in will allow you to perform.
If your definition of DONE is about moving the needle incrementally forward versus having everything finished (or perfect), you can proceed with greater confidence.

3) The degree to which your performance will allow you reach your desired outcome. If you know the actions you take in the time you have will bring you closer to your ultimate goal, your desire to take that step will increase. (This is why many digital surveys feature progress bars that show how close you are to finishing.)

Never underestimate the power of simplicity. Sometimes you can do more when you focus on less.

Here’s to moving forward!

Diane

Sometimes the Smallest Changes Spark the Biggest Transformations

“How do you like your new office?” my friend asked. I had moved from a small building to a larger one and managed to find a nice little space on the second floor at the top of a winding staircase.

It didn’t take long for me to realize it was likely the ONLY small office, surrounded by much larger suites filled with employees of organizations far bigger than my own.

“I love it. It’s beautiful and quiet… Maybe too quiet sometimes,” I added.

My friend looked puzzled.

I missed walking down the halls of my old building, seeing warm smiles on familiar faces, and engaging in an occasional bit of banter.

“It’s strange,” I told her. People don’t seem to make eye contact. Everyone stares straight ahead and silently goes about their business. It’s like an unwritten code or something.”

“An introvert’s dream.” She replied.

She was right. Kind of.

As an introvert myself, I must admit I’m not one who actively seeks conversation. But something was missing. I just wasn’t feeling very connected.

A few days later I was washing my hands in the lady’s room. A woman came out of the stall and proceeded to the sink next to mine. Something welled up in me. Before I knew what I was doing, I heard myself break the silence, suddenly blurting out a clumsy greeting.

“How are you today?”

She looked up, somewhat startled, and stared blankly at me. For a moment, I was reminded of how it felt to be an awkward teenager.

“I’m fine,” she replied after what seemed an eternity. “How are you?”

“I’m great. I’m kind of new here, and I noticed that people don’t really talk to each other much – it’s like an elevator where everyone faces forward and never interacts. And I started to do that too. But I thought it might be nice to try something different today.”

Her face softened, and her eyes brightened. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just running all the time from thing to thing and so preoccupied.”

“I know that feeling,” I responded, thinking of how many times I was kind of relieved to not have to engage with anyone.

“It really is nice to just be able to talk like yourself, isn’t’ it?” she said.

I found her choice of words interesting. We both relaxed a bit and became a little more conscious. After exchanging names and talking ever so briefly, we each went our way.

And in that moment, the trajectory of my day (and perhaps that of days to come) was changed.

As I reflected on the interaction later, I realized how easy it is for all of us to just take as given the circumstances we find ourselves in – the social norms, the cultural conditioning, the perceived constraints of our day-to-day lives.

Some of those norms serve us. But every once in a while, you might recognize one you’d like to bump up against and challenge in some small, perhaps even unperceivable way.

Do it. You may find you’re not the only one who wants to break through those unwritten rules.

Sometimes the smallest changes spark the biggest transformations – even if only in yourself.

Here’s to busting out of your box!

Sometimes Falling Back Allows You to Move Forward

Busyness Is Not Good Business

 

Ever feel like you’re running harder than ever but not really getting anywhere? If the road you’re on won’t get you to your desired destination, moving faster won’t do you any favors.

When you put more importance on the tactics than you do on your vision/goal – and cling to a plan without continually reevaluating it, you’ve sacrificed the strategic in the name of the operational.

As an executive coach, this is one of the major challenges I work with executives to overcome. Operational is clean. It has defined edges and finite solutions. You can check the boxes and feel a sense of closure and control with an operational approach.

Strategic on the other hand can be a bit messier. It involves stepping into uncertainty to address challenges and opportunities that are new and unfamiliar.

There is usually no one right answer. It often involves taking steps out of your comfort zone. And it requires that you slow down instead of speeding up, something that most of us tend to resist because slowing down flies in the face of what we’ve been conditioned to do.

To avoid this discomfort, many executives prefer being busy to being strategic. It gives them the illusion of being productive and the burst of adrenaline that is a nice (yet ultimately unsatisfying and addictive) placebo for real progress.

But busyness isn’t going to help you hit the target necessary to advance your business (or your career).

Because until you slow down long enough to assess your environment and allow your intuitive mind to partner with your rational mind, you may not even realize what your true target is, let alone how to get there.

Malcolm Gladwell echoed the wisdom of Albert Einstein his iconic book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. He wrote, “The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”

Knowledge is the product of absorbing information. Understanding is the product of insight. And insight comes from the integration of information with experience, from slowing down long enough to practice reflection and discernment.

So the next time you feel compelled to speed up, try slowing down.

Take some time to check in with yourself to identify what is most important to you right now. Reflect on the changing nature of your environment and see if you can tune into ways to proactively interact with it. Give your very best ideas a chance to land softly in the space between your thoughts.

And when you get those insights, act on them – even (and maybe especially) if they nudge you to move in new directions and do things you haven’t done before.

Don’t be afraid to deviate from your routine or stray from your plan – to strategically blaze a trail into the future you must be willing to break away from the constraints of your past.

Here’s to boldly creating your future!

Performance Management Doesn’t Have to Be Painful

Do you dread doing performance appraisals? (…or any kind of performance management?)

If so, you’re not alone. It’s rarely an experience people look forward to – whether on the receiving, or the giving end. But it doesn’t have to be.

It’s true that many performance appraisal systems don’t do much to motivate and inspire even the strongest of performers (and are often seen as a necessary evil). But if you feel your hands are tied as a result, you will dramatically underestimate the power of your leadership.

Over the years, in the myriad of 360 feedback interviews I’ve done for my executive clients, it almost never fails that at least one (and usually many more) of their directs indicate they would really like to have more feedback, coaching, and mentoring on what they could do better…

Which is interesting – because they don’t just say they want more POSITIVE feedback. They say they want the CONSTRUCTIVE kind too.

They want to know what their leader sees them as capable of achieving – what heights their manager envisions them potentially reaching. And they want to know what they need to do (or stop doing) to close the gap between where they are and where they could be.

These conversations are undoubtedly something that should happen more than once or twice a year. But even if, like many leaders, you have not yet made good on your intentions to have those conversations more often, you can start anytime.

You can start now.

Here are some questions worth considering that can help you turn otherwise unpleasant feedback conversations into valuable ignitors of performance.

• What do you see each of your people capable of achieving?
• What, if anything might they be doing that could get in their way?
• How can you bring limiting behaviors or patterns to their attention in a way that helps them recognize (1) how their current behavior is getting in their way, (2) why making a change will help them to succeed, (3) what they need to do differently, (4) what gives you the confidence they can turn things around?
• What coaching, mentoring, learning/development opportunities, and/or other support can you make available to help them bridge the gap?

Performance feedback conversations don’t have to be a drag.

If you were walking around with a giant weight tied to your back that you didn’t realize you were carrying, you’d be grateful to someone who helped you recognize how to release it. Especially if that person was also able to hold a vision of what you could achieve if you let it go – and where you might be able to go without it.

As a leader, you can do that for other people all day, every day.

Here’s to your success – and your ability to help others succeed too!

Diane

When Life Throws You Curve Balls… Use Them to Improve Your Game

Have you experienced a lot of change and/or challenge recently?

The last several weeks/months ushered in a series of unfortunate events in my life that had me reeling a bit.  But I learned a few things in the process that helped me get through it all and bounce back stronger. Thought I’d share that in this week’s video…

As Robert Frost once said, “The best way out is always through.” I’ve learned that some of life’s richest lessons are learned through adversity. And what you learn in your personal life benefits you professionally (and vice versa).

We tend to want to move through unpleasant circumstances as quickly as possible, but there is something to be said for pausing long enough to absorb the wisdom they awaken within you. Because those situations always come with gifts that must be unwrapped to be fully received.

If you’re grappling with a challenge right now, I wish you peace, courage, resilience, and faith. You’ve likely been through worse – and you’ll come out the other side better.

Here’s to using life’s curve balls to improve your game!