Ideas to energize, motivate and build confidence, summarized from monthly posts.
February 2018
Nap-accino! When your early afternoon eye-droop hits.
In Daniel Pink’s new book, When, he describes the coffee+power nap combo!
October 2016
Be a Meeting Hero
Chair effective meetings: right attendees, preparation, stated objectives, discussion, review actions, schedule follow up!
Amazon/ Meeting Hero by Tom Laforce
September 2016
Battle demotivation!
Illustrate your big-picture plan. List and check-off your achievements from past steps. Listing and check-boxing future steps will help focus attention and bring new opportunities to light!
July 2016
4 in-4 out -2 hold.
BREATHE Rhythmically, Evenly And Through the Heart Everyday. BREATHE. Check out around 9mins 30 seconds in this Tedx video:
https://youtu.be/Q_fFattg8N0
June 2016
Mastermind your own success
Napoleon Hill used this term in his book “Think and Grow Rich”. If you don’t already have a group, go recruit a few friends for practice. Once you have the hang of it, recruit a few all-stars to heighten your game.
May 2016
Compete – at an individual event. Pushing yourself against competition will expand your own limits for performance. Maybe your focus is music, art, public speaking, or a sport. This also builds on your skills of goals setting!
April 2016
Speak-up. Look for opportunities to challenge your social conditioning: Offer a complement, a word of encouragement, help someone. Build your experience-bank for taking action.
March 2016
Seasonal rhythm – pursue goals for the season.
I heard this mentioned in an interview with Todd Henry, about his book “The Accidental Creative”. Spring is great to start project, summer for creating relationships, fall and winter for focusing on maintaining.
February 2016
What is one small thing that you have been meaning to get done? Right now, write it down and the next two steps to achieve it. First thing tomorrow morning, just go and do it. Eat that frog! Geez!
January 2016
Learn how to be funny. Seriously!
Read about and practice how to use humour effectively in the work place. Chapter 3 of Primal Leadership clearly makes the case for harnessing the skill to get people on your side. From Pg 34,
“The researchers also interviewed high-level leaders, almost half of whom were CEOs or general managers from the United States and abroad, about high and low points in their careers. During the interview, the outstanding leaders used three times more humorous comments—about one every four minutes—than the average leaders.” – Primal Leadership: Learning to lead with Emotional Intelligence – 2001
December 2015
Command attention On the In Breath
If you have not yet read it, check out page 72,73 of Mark Bowden’s book, Winning Body Language. He describes the real techniques you can use to inspire your audience to listen.
“With more oxygen, the brain can afford to deal with (process) more information—it is happy for you to see and hear more. This is great for you as an influencer: the more information you have, the more power you have to persuade”
November 2015
Do your best work early!
When you have the option, schedule the morning for any important meeting, presentation or interview. Get up early and perform a high-intensity, short duration legs workout (dead-lift, cleans, squats, etc). You will achieve a boost of endorphin, testosterone, and lower cortisol (stress hormone) levels. Then, go and ‘communicate’ with your audience!
October 2015
Be decisive through Principles.
Employers, clients and significant others seek people of action. You can train yourself to be more decisive by self-affirming your principles at least once daily.
Write down your ideal principles or guiding values (5-10). Read them first thing in the morning and again after any stressful situations. They will become ingrained, habit. In situations of conflict or challenge, your decisions and actions will default to these principles, really without thinking. Practice being decisive and observe how others react to you. I would like to hear from you what you experience.
September 2015
Change your vocabulary. Use “and” rather than “but”, use proper nouns rather than “stuff” or “things”, use “not able due to ….” instead of “cannot”.
August 2015
Practice drawing regularly
Doodling and sketching helps to unlock your creativity and big-picture thinking. Further, seeing is believing: draw your goals, then achieve them
For the basics, watch: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxRainier-Patti-Dobrowolski-D
July 2015
Sleep effectively
Consistent sleep = peak effectiveness. A leading company in this field, Fatigue, demonstrates the correlation between your sleep quality and your ability to perform effectively the next day.
Below is an example from http://www.fatiguescience.com/. Check out the science behind it.
You can see my results from a Fatigue Science study which I participated in during a high-stress camp project during 2013. Follow the link: Fatigue Science Evaluation: Jesse Corrigan
June 2015
Build your morning momentum by drinking a glass of water as soon as you wake up, before getting out of bed.
- Digestive system will start before breakfast
- Avoid “morning-mouth”
- Hydrate for a morning run or work-out
May 2015
Build your confidence in communication.
Read Chapter 8 starting on page 125 of : “Winning Body language” http://www.slideshare.net/nguyencongdanh/winning-body-language-mark-bowden
April 2015
Amy Cuddy TED Talk – Your Body Language Shapes who you are!
http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en
