by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Tools, Wellbeing, Willpower
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The one characteristic that unites enemies and strengths
— From The Artist’s Journey: The Wake of the Hero’s Journey and the Lifelong Pursuit of Meaning from Steven Pressfield
I love Steven Pressfield’s books. He has a knack for brevity, clarity and great wordsmanship that I admire enormously (and secretly wish I had).
In his great book The Artist’s Journey, the author makes a point of sharing and comparing the modern-day enemies that (most of us) share and the strengths that we all strive to have. The conclusion? The one thing that unites both our enemies and strengths is that they are all mental.
Don’t believe it? Check this out:
ENEMIES: “None of these enemies are real… they are all products of the mind.”
Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
Fear of the new, of pain, of loneliness, of exertion, of intensity.
Need for external (third-party) validation.
Self-doubt.
Arrogance.
Impatience.
Inability to defer gratification.
Predisposition to distraction.
Shallowness of thought and purpose.
Conventionality.
Insularity.
The need to cling to the known.
The best part of this, says Pressfield, is that we “confront no foes that are not of [our] own creation.” Yes, a pouncing lion or a man with a gun may be real, but we’re not talking about those absolutely true, physical dangers in here (if you confront either one of them, please run!).
We’re referring to our every day, mentally domesticated and cultivated, enemies. We have within ourselves the ability to defeat them: we’ve created these enemies in our heads and we can overcome them the same way.
But how do we overcome them?
By developing and nurturing strengths within ourselves. They are also a product of our mind. And while Pressfield rightly points out that none of the strengths listed below are innate, the good thing is that “all may be acquired by effort and force of will.”
STRENGTHS:
Courage.
Honesty, particularly with oneself.
Self-confidence.
Humility.
Compassion for oneself and others.
The ability to receive criticism objectively.
Patience.
Curiosity, open-mindedness, receptivity to the new.
The ability to focus.
The ability to defer gratification.
Will.
Mental toughness.
The capacity to endure adversity, injustice, indifference.
In computer science, the term GIGO stands for “garbage in garbage out.” This means that if you put flawed data in (=garbage), you get flawed data out. It’s the science equivalent of the old saying you reap what you sow.
Our mind works the same way. Feed it with the enemies described above and it becomes a fearful, selfish mess. Feed it with the strengths above and you will attain the best version of yourself. We could even coin the term VIVO: virtue in virtue out, or value in value out. (I was not able to find the opposite of GIGO anywhere… if you have a better option let me know in the comments here.)
The wonderful thing about all this is that it is up to us: we’re not subject to anything or anyone to get started and to cultivate and reap the rewards of the VIVO habit. Let’s go!
“Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
ACTION
TODAY: Pick one of the enemies from the list above or one that you are battling within. Pick a strength to overcome it. Think of an instance in the past in which you let the enemy rule and ponder how you could have overcome it with the strength. Please don’t use this as a way to beat yourself up, but instead as an opportunity to learn directly how to react the next time. It’s all a matter of awareness: the quicker you realize when your enemy is creeping up, the quicker you’ll be able to defeat it by bringing out the virtue/value with which you want to substitute it.
FUTURE: Make VIVO a habit that will help you cultivate and reap the best version of you.
Know someone who could use the concept of VIVO? Please share this post! Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 36 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 3 Things all good listeners do – Part 4
— From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
In this miniseries, we’ve learned that good listeners (1) think before they speak, (2) listen with respect, and (3) ask “Is it worth it?” before answering. This is all incredibly simple, yet you’ll likely agree with me that it’s not easy.
Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, says, “The only difference between us and the super-successful among us—the near-great and the great—is that the great ones do this all the time. It’s automatic for them… there’s no on and off switch for caring and empathy and showing respect. It’s always on… They treat everybody equally—and everyone eventually notices.”
“The weird part here,” Goldsmith goes on, “is that all of us, at every level of success, already know this. […] We already believe it. The question is: Why don’t we do it? Answer: We forget. We get distracted. We don’t have the mental discipline to make it automatic.”
Since the majority of this skill involves listening, and listening requires discipline, Goldsmith developed a simple exercise to test listening skills. Try it for yourself. Close your eyes and count to 50 with one simple goal: you cannot let another thought intrude into your mind; you must concentrate on keeping the count.
More than half of Goldsmith’s clients can’t do this. Around 20 or 30 other thoughts start to invade. While this seems as an exercise in concentration, it’s really a test of listening. “After all,” Goldsmith points out, “if you can’t listen to yourself (someone you presumably like and respect) as you count to 50, how will you ever be able to listen to another person?”
Just as you get limber by stretching your muscles every day, the more you do this exercise, the more you’ll be able to count to 50 without being easily distracted. “This newfound power of concentration will make you a better listener. After that, you’re ready for a test drive.” So, go make your next interaction an exercise in making the person you’re with feel like the only one in the room, whether that’s your spouse, a colleague or a total stranger.
Goldsmith has put together this list of tactics as a cheat sheet—keep it handy!
- Don’t interrupt.
- Don’t finish the other person’s sentences.
- Don’t say “I knew that.”
- Don’t even agree with the other person (even if he praises you, just say “Thank you”).
- Don’t use the words “no,” “but,” and “however.”
- Don’t be distracted. Don’t let your eyes or attention wander elsewhere while the other person is talking.
- Maintain your end of the dialogue by asking intelligent questions that (a) show you’re paying attention, (b) move the conversation forward, and (c) require the other person to talk (while you listen).
- Eliminate any striving to impress the other person with how smart or funny you are. Your only aim is to let the other person feel that he or she is accomplishing that.
If you can do all of the above, Goldsmith says that you’ll uncover a glaring paradox: “The more you subsume your desire to shine, the more you will shine in the other person’s eyes.” And that is true because by fully listening, you’ll make people feel “like a million bucks in your presence, you’ll score a bulls-eye.”
The good thing to all this is that we already know how to listen and focus. Just think of when you go on a first date, or when you’re on a sales call, or in a meeting with your boss: very likely you will be focused and interested in what the other person is saying. The key, going forward, “[is] a matter of remembering to do it all the time.”
ACTION
TODAY: Do the 50-count test and see how far you can go. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get far (I got to 27 and started wondering where my dog was…), the more you do it the better you’ll get.
FUTURE: Keep working on the 50-count exercise. Despite how far you go on it, review the cheat sheet and determine to apply as many of the concepts as possible until, as Goldsmith says, you remember to do it all the time.
Please share this post with someone who might be interested in refining his/her listening skills with this miniseries. Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 50 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 3 Things all good listeners do – Part 3
— From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
Welcome to another installment of this oh-so-simple but profoundly changing miniseries in listening. So far, we’ve learned that all good listeners: (1) think before they speak, and (2) listen with respect.
According to Marshall Goldsmith in his brilliant book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, the third thing all good listeners do is not so obvious, and certainly not so simple as the other two.
What is it, you ask? Well, after fully listening while in conversation, good listeners ask themselves a difficult question before they answer:
3. “Is it worth it?”
Why is it difficult? Mainly because, “while we’re supposedly [listening], we’re actually busy composing what we’re going to say next,” says Goldsmith. Instead of racing ahead formulating our answer, we should fully to listen to what the other person is saying, then think about our answer, and—before uttering our response—we should ask ourselves Is it worth it?
This “forces [us] to consider what the other person will feel after hearing [our] response. It forces [us] to play at least two moves ahead. Not many people do that.”
“Asking, ‘Is it worth it?’ engages you in thinking beyond the discussion to consider (a) how the other person regards you, (b) what the other person will do afterwards, and (c) how that person will behave the next time you talk.”
Goldsmith points out, “When someone tells us something, we have a menu of options to fashion our response. Some of our responses are smart, some are stupid. Some are on point, some miss the point. Some will encourage the other person, some will discourage [him/her]. Some will make [the person] feel appreciated, some will not.”
“Think about the last time you floated an idea in a meeting and the most senior person in the room (assuming it wasn’t you) ripped you for saying it. It doesn’t matter whether your idea was dumb and the other person’s response was brilliant—or vice versa. Just think about how you felt. Did you think more highly of the other person saying it? Did it make you appreciate anew that person’s tremendous listening skills? Did it inspire you to go back to your work with fresh enthusiasm? Did it make you more eager to speak up the next time you were in a meeting with that person? I’d wager the answers are no, no, no, and no.”
And this is precisely the consequence of responding without asking Is it worth it? “People not only think you don’t listen, but you have instigated a three-part chain of consequences: (1) they are hurt; (2) they harbor ill feelings toward the person who inflicted the hurt (i.e. they hate you); and (3) in the predictable response to negative reinforcement, they are less likely to repeat the event (i.e., they won’t speak up next time).”
This is hardly the formula for successful leadership. In the words of one of Goldsmith’s coaching clients who is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company: “Before speaking, I take a breath and ask myself… ‘Is it worth it?’ …[Even if] what I was going to say was correct—maybe—saying it wasn’t worth it.”
Asking Is it worth it? opens up the possibility of considering many alternatives:
- Do we speak or shut up?
- Do we argue or simply say, ‘Thank you’?
- Do we add our needless two cents or bite our tongue?
- Do we rate the comments or simply acknowledge them?
While nobody can tell you what to say, particularly in a challenging situation or a tense meeting, asking Is it worth it? will give you the red light to stop, the yellow light to consider alternatives, or the green light to speak freely.
As you can see, great listeners use empathy every step of the way. By taking into account the other person’s thoughts and feelings by asking Is it worth it? you too will be engaging in a “profound consequential leap of thought,” says Goldsmith. “Suddenly you are seeing the bigger picture.”
These are the three things that all good listeners do. Come back tomorrow for the last part of this miniseries so that you can see how to tie it all together. You’ll learn a simple listening exercise to help you get stronger in this area.
See you mañana!
ACTION
TODAY: Make a point of asking Is it worth it? many times throughout your interactions today.
FUTURE: Make habit of incorporating this question as part of your listening toolkit. It’ll be worth it! 😉
Please share this post with someone who might be interested in refining his/her listening skills with this miniseries. Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 17 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 3 Things all good listeners do – Part 2
— From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
Yesterday we learned how important it is to think before we speak. Today we will focus on the second thing that good listeners do:
2. Listen with respect.
“To learn from people, you have to listen to them with respect,” says Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
Sounds too simple? It’s easier said than done. Think about this common scenario: “You’re reading a book, watching TV, or shuffling papers while your significant other is talking to you. Suddenly you hear, ‘You’re not listening to me.’ You look up and say, ‘Yes, I am.’ And calmly provide a verbatim playback of everything said to prove that you were listening and that your companion in life is … wrong.”
Goldsmith goes on to ask, “What have you accomplished by this virtuosic display of your multitasking skills? Was it smart? No. Does your partner think more highly of you? Not likely. Is anyone impressed? Hardly. The only thing going through your partner’s mind is, ‘Gee, I thought you weren’t listening. But now I realize it’s a much deeper issue. You’re a complete jerk.’ ”
Fortunately, in this case, there’s love, understanding, patience and forgiveness (I hope) in your relationship. But, what about at the office or anywhere else? What is your reaction when your boss, a colleague, or the clerk at the DMV continue to type and keep looking at their computer when you are in front of them asking or telling them something? And they don’t even bother to look at you while they say, ‘I’m listening, I’m listening,’ as they keep typing away…
Nobody likes that.
“This is what happens when we listen without showing respect,” says Goldsmith. As you can see it is much more frequent than we think it is. “It’s not enough to keep our ears open; we have to demonstrate that we are totally engaged.”
So, let’s now turn this back on us: how many times have we done this?
…Oops!
The saying goes that we judge others by their actions but we judge ourselves by our intentions. Clearly, our intention was never to be disrespectful: maybe we thought we could multitask by working on an urgent report while listening to our colleague… Yet the outward manifestation of that intention was plain rudeness towards our colleague, since he/she had no clue about our intention.
Having the right intention is not enough when listening to our loved ones or anyone else. We must convey with our attitude, behavior, and body language how important the other person is for us at that moment. And if we cannot devote attention to them right then, we should let them know—respectfully—and then go back to what we were doing.
Leaders everywhere know how to listen respectfully, actively and intentionally. They make you feel as if you are the only person in the room. Their eyes are locked on you and their body language says that they care about what you are saying.
“The ability to make a person feel that, when you’re with that person he or she is the most important (and the only) person in the room is the skill that separates the great from the near-great.”
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Part 3: you will learn the one question that changes the whole conversation and its consequences.
ACTION
TODAY: Practice listening with respect. Give your full attention to the other person. Don’t be formulating your response before he/she ends speaking. If you need a brief pause once the person is done speaking (and it feels too awkward to keep quiet), simply say, “give me a second, please, I’m thinking about what you said,” and then organize your ideas and respond.
FUTURE: Practice listening with respect. Practice, practice, practice, until the habit is ingrained.
Please share this post with someone who might be interested in refining his/her listening skills with this miniseries. Email, Facebook, Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 8 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 3 Things all good listeners do – Part 1
— From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
In his wonderful book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, leadership thinker and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith states that “80 percent of our success in learning from other people is based upon how well we listen. In other words, success or failure is determined before we do anything.”
How is this possible?
Goldsmith explains that most of us think about listening as a passive activity, as if we don’t have to do anything but sit back and hear someone out. Nothing could be further from the truth, he says. “Good listeners regard what they do as a highly active process—with every muscle engaged, especially the brain.”
There are three things that all good listeners do, and this is what we will learn in this miniseries. Note that nothing in here is rocket science, on the contrary, every single one of those three things is quite simple. Yet simple, as we know, doesn’t necessarily mean easy. It’s a matter of actively doing it and developing the habit, yet it is well worth it to master listening, as it is one of the most-prized leadership skills.
1. Think before you speak
Again, easier said than done. “You can’t listen if you’re talking. So keeping your mouth shut is an active choice.” We all know that person who can never keep quiet and who has to inject his or her opinion into everything and have the last word, don’t we? Ugh!
Goldsmith refers to Frances Hesselbein as the champion of thinking before speaking. Hesselbein is an exemplary businesswoman who, among many things, led the Girl Scouts and transformed it from a wilting organization into a flourishing one. (Learn how she did this.)
“If you asked her if [listening] was a passive gesture, she would assure you that it requires great discipline, particularly when she is upset about what she’s hearing.” Goldsmith continues, “After all, what do most of us do when we’re angry? We speak (and not in the carefully measured tones of a diplomat). What do we do when we’re upset? We talk. What do we do when we’re confused or surprised or shocked? Again, we talk.”
He points out that when bad news is delivered, “[talking] is so predictable that we can see the other party almost cringe in anticipation of our harsh unthinking autoreflex response.”
“Not so with Frances Hesselbein,” says Goldsmith. “You could tell her the world was about to end and she would think before opening her mouth, not only about what she would say but how she would phrase it.”
“Whereas most people think of listening as something we do during those moments when we are not talking,” superb listening, turns out, is a two-part maneuver, and thus the importance of the last element in the previous paragraph: how to phrase it.
“There’s the part where we actually listen. And there’s the part where we speak. Speaking establishes how we are perceived as a listener. What we say is proof of how well we listen. They are two sides of the same coin.”
Goldsmith defies us to argue that this approach is anything but a highly active, decisive choice. I agree. “Telling your brain and mouth not to do something is no different than telling them to do it.”
Come back tomorrow to continue learning about the other things that good listeners do. If you can master what this miniseries teaches, you will be a great listener in no time.
ACTION
TODAY: Think before you speak. Need I say more? Check out these other posts on listening.
FUTURE: Think before you speak. Always.
And only after you’re done thinking before you speak 😉 please take a moment to share this post — thank you! Email, Facebook, Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Resolutions
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 20 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Success is predictable
— From No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline by Brian Tracy
I am a big believer in the “success leaves clues” principle: whatever success means to you, there is someone who, very likely, has already achieved that which you want. And this is a wonderful thing, not only because it proves that it can be done, but also because, by virtue of this person leaving “clues,” you can follow his/her footsteps and achieve your goals.
Success, any way you define it, sometimes seems elusive and unpredictable though. That is, until now. In his great book, No Excuses!, business guru Brian Tracy says that success is indeed predictable: “Success is not an accident. Sadly, failure is not an accident either. You succeed when you do what other successful people do, over and over, until these behaviors become a habit. Likewise, you fail if you don’t do what successful people do.”
Tracy goes on to say that when you are not working “deliberately, consciously, and continuously to do, be, and have those things that constitute success for you,” you default to the path of least resistance, or to the expediency path. Neither of these two paths will lead to success, instead, they will lead to cutting corners and getting things done just to get them out of the way, but not to put in the work to do them right necessarily.
In the book, there’s a quote by H. L. Hunt, who was at some point the richest man in the world. He was asked what the secrets of his success were, to which he replied:
“There are only three requirements for success. First, decide exactly what it is you want in life. Second, determine the price that you are going to have to pay to get the things you want. And third, and this is most important, resolve to pay the price.”
Everyone wants to be successful. And one of the most important requirements is the willingness to pay the price, “whatever it is and for as long as it takes, until they achieve the results they desire,” says Tracy. “But most people are not willing to pay the price. Occasionally, they may be willing to pay part of the price, but they are not willing to pay the whole price.”
At this point you are probably wondering what the price of success is. Tracy answers, “It’s simple: Look around you. There it is! You can always tell how much of the price of success you have paid by looking at your current lifestyle and your bank account.”
One of the prices that we must pay is that of learning all we can, from the experts, so that we can follow in their footsteps before venturing out on our own. Another price to pay is the ongoing nature of our mental and physical fitness: “Achieving success is like achieving physical fitness. It is like bathing, brushing your teeth, and eating. It is something that you need to do continuously, every day. Once you begin, you never stop until your life and career are over and you have achieved all the success you desire.”
Please tell me in the comments here what other prices come to mind!
ACTION
TODAY: Determine what success looks like to you. Then determine who has achieved what you want and start following in that person’s footsteps. Has this person written a book? Or does he/she have a blog? Do they have a seminar or webinar, or an e-course? Can you write to them for an informational interview or advice?
FUTURE: Once you have determined what success looks like to you, make a plan to implement the steps that can get you there. What is the price that you will have to pay? Think, of course, in terms of money, but also in terms of time, opportunity cost, etc. It’s important to know (or at least to have an estimate up front as to what it will take) and to commit. Determine your willingness to do so and move forward.
Please share this post with someone who is doing things right and enjoying the price of success! Email, Facebook, Twitter.
