From Armchair to Action

From Action to Armchair

This weekend saw the reverse of my normal mantra - From Armchair to Action, as I decided to have a chill out for a change, and enjoy the benefits of the armchair instead of action.  It was a great pleasure, catching up on news, watching TV, sleeping and generally not engaging brain too much!

Sometimes we can spend so much time rushing around, that we miss the moments of reflection and solitude and particularly at this time of the year, being able to take some time out is really important.

So what are my top 3 tips to move from Action to Armchair?

1.  Think about the benefits of slowing down and relaxing

2.  Make sure it's a comfortable armchair that will entice you to sit in it

3.  Learn how to view life from a different perspective and take time to think

Top 5 coaching issues

In my work as an executive coach with business leaders, I come across many common issues and have distilled the top five below:

1.  Influencing - how to influence people whom you have no formal authority over

2.  Confidence - leaders in a new role or those looking to move to the next level

3.  Work/life balance - how to get greater balance between work and home life

4.  Understanding the politics - knowing how to "play the game" in the organisation

5.  What's next? - long term career or life planning

It strikes me that these issues are also of relevance for many people starting out their career too, and not just those at the top of their profession/organisation/company. Do you agree?

Fear is the greatest inhibitor....hear more on Sue Stockdale interview

I talk about this and lots more in my latest interview on KMUN radio. Listen to a taster here or the full interview listen to the podcast here (30 minutes)

Making a commitment and cognitive dissonance

One of the things I learned owhen I first started doing motivational presentations was it was hard to know if anyone ever took action as a result of what they heard.  I reflected on this and wondered what I could do to encourage listeners to take action, and also to get feedback on how they had got on. So I created the concept of the commitment card - where people write down one action they will commit to taking and I follow up with them after a month or so. 

What my intention is behind doing this was reinforced when listening to an episode of a Radio 4 Programme - Persuading Us to be Good where they described the concept of cognitive dissonance and how when people make a public commitment they are less likely to change their minds later.  Aha - I thought that is why I encourage the completion of commitment cards.

Over the years, they have produced some really interesting results.  Many people say that knowing I would follow up with them encouraged them to take the action, others say they felt supported in taking an action related to something they had been thinking about for a while.  No matter what the reason is, it excites me to get feedback that people have taken action - as that is the only way we learn, and get encouragement to take the next step....

Which Hierarchy of Success?

I was reading Seth Godin's blog posting about the hierarchy of success where he talks about the levels that he believes matter:

1. Attitude
2. Approach
3. Goals
4. Strategy
5. Tactics
6. Execution

He poses some interesting questions in relation to these levels.  On reading this it struck me that the hierarchy is much like the NLP Logical Levels of Change where the higher up the levels you look, the greater the focus is on what's really inside a human being and what's driving them.

• Purpose
• Identity
• Values and Beliefs
• Skills and Capabiities
• Behaviours
• Environment

Mission Possible is holding an event next week on the issue of Success - so I wonder what the speakers at this event will have to say on the subject? 

Having reflected on the adventures I have undertaken over the years - it does not matter whether the challenge is to get to the North Pole, escape from a helicopter submerged underwater or running for Scotland, I have learnt that you have to look inside first before you can improve on the outside. The more you understand what drives you, how your beliefs help or hinder and how you bounce back from disappointment, the more you can get better at what you do and achieve the success you desire.

Who should promote the female brand?

I saw that a new book has just been published on the subject of The Female Brand by Catherine Kaputa. The book aims to provide some insight into why talented women have trouble succeeding in business (mainly corporates I think) and provide some methods that we can use to create our own authentic brand.

I can't help thinking that we sometimes only look at one part of the equation.  Many of the entrepreneurial women I have met, left corporate land precisely because they felt they could not "be authentic" in that environment.  So if they are able to create a female brand that they are comfortable with in their own company, what' stops them doing so in the corporate world?   It's the culture, I hear you say, that's just how it is.  So if the people at the top of organisations (mostly men) don't get the value of a different culture, how are they going to be convinced.  Maybe its time to promote male role models, who can be flag fliers for the female brand too?  Will that help them listen and take action?  Or should we just encourage more women to take their talents elsewhere, build large corporations themselves and create different cultures?  What do you think? 

Secrets of Successful People

As I love reading real-life accounts about successful people so that I can learn from their experiences, I was pleased to hear that a new book is published this week by Blaire Palmer called "The Recipe for Success.  In it she has identified 10 ingredients (not 7 steps like mine!) that successful people from all walks of life have in common so I will have a read and see if there are any commonalites!

Change and Mercury

In the last couple of weeks I have spoken to a high proportion of my business acquaintances from whom something is changing in their life.  Now you may say, well that happens all the time, but it has been very noticeable to me that these changes are quite major ones - pregnancy, sale of business, purchase of business, marriage etc.   In conversation with one of my friends, we wondered if it was to do with Mercury being in retrograde.

I am not much of an astrological person and had to look up what this meant, but in doing so found an interesting article which made good sense to me.  What is said was "Mercury retrograde is not considered a favorable time to start something new, but serves as an opportunity to review situations we’ve overlooked or might not have paid enough attention to. When Mercury is retrograde, it’s time to put the RE prefix before everything you do: reconfirm, rethink, renegotiate, repair, revise, redo, reconnect, reinvent, retry, etc." And whilst the last period when this happened was Jan 11th to Feb 1st 2009, it would tie in with my theory that this reflection then prompted change.

Reviewing is something that in our busy lifestyles we do not always make time to do and so perhaps something about Mercury is beneficial to our businesses by encouraging us to take time to reflect.

Perfectionism - do you suffer from this?

This week I was listening to an interesting 15 minute radio programme about Perfectionism. It made me think about several of my coaching clients who seem to suffer from this habit at times and find it difficult to change.  Whilst any strength like being a perfectionist can be of real value I think the secret is to be aware of when the outcome is "good enough" and does not have to get the extra perfectionist treatment!

If you want to know if you qualify for being a perfectionist you can even take a quick quiz to find out