The People Builder: Recent Episodes
Grant Herbert
Practical lessons from my own journey of imperfection as man, husband, father, corporate and business leader, Emotional Intelligence coach and trainer.
Do you find yourself continually needing to rebuild the trust you've built with your people?
Well, stick with me because, in this episode, I will show you what you could be doing that is causing the problem.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/the-trust-breakers
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have a hard time getting people to buy into what you're putting down?
Well, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I want to show you how you can build trust fast so that they want to work with you.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/behaviours-of-a-high-trust-leader
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you just trust everybody with the title "leader", or are there certain behaviours that you look for before they tick your boxes and give them your trust?
Well, people who you lead are doing the same thing.
So, stick with me because in this week's episode, I want to show you what people are looking for.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/behaviours-of-a-high-trust-leader
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have people in your team that are really sceptical and challenging to get moving alongside you, or do they get stuck in really quick because they believe in what you're saying and what you're doing?
Well, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I want to continue our conversation around the relationship management competencies of social intelligence by moving into one of the most important competencies around building trust.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/building-trust-in-your-team
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
As a leader, do you find that your coaching tends to just be all over the place that it's hit and miss, you're not quite sure and you get together with the person that you're coaching and you don't feel like you actually make any headway?
Well, stick with me because in this week's episode, I'm going to show you how to change that.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/the-coaching-conversation-framework
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
You've decided to give this coaching thing a go and coach your people in your organisation, but you're not sure where to start. Well, stick with me because this week, I want to help you know exactly the first steps to take.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/establishing-a-coaching-relationship
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you expected to do some coaching in your leadership position, and you're not quite sure what that is; you've got different ideas that you've heard about, but you're not really sure what it is that you're supposed to do?
Well, stick with me because in this week's episode, I want to continue our conversation around coaching and mentoring others. By helping you to understand what are the areas that you need to develop so that you can be a great coach.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/fundamental-coaching-skills
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you someone that people always come to for advice? Do you find yourself helping people to work out their strengths and help them to work on the areas that they want to improve, or are you a little bit confused about this thing called coaching and mentoring?
Well, stick with me because in this week's episode, I want to start a conversation around the competency of coaching and mentoring others. This is a key area in relationship management.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/establishing-a-team-charter
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
You've probably heard it said before that there is no "I" in team.
Well, stick with me because in this week's episode, I want to show you why that's not true anymore.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/establishing-a-team-charter
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are the people in your team constantly at each other, taking everything personally and having heaps of conflict, or do they let a document do the talking for them?
Well, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I'm going to help you create a structure that will remove all that conflict.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/establishing-a-team-charter
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
In a world where there's so much self-induced isolation with people, having their faces glued to the screen of a smartphone, conventional ways of developing teams don't work anymore.
So, stick with me because in this week's episode, I want to continue our conversation around teamwork and help you to understand the main areas to focus on.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/the-four-pillars-of-teamwork
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find that the team you're working in is not the same one you joined? Are you confused by the changes that keep going on and the relationships that grow or don't grow?
Well, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I will help you understand why and how to change things.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/embracing-team-evolution
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you a bit of a loner who likes to just work by yourself, or have you learned the power and value of working in a well-oiled team?
Well, stick with me because today and over the next few weeks, I'm going to unpack for you one of the most important competencies that I had to develop and that I work with people everywhere I go in the relationship management quadrant, and that is teamwork and collaboration.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/working-effectively-in-a-team
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have difficulty letting go of the pain that comes with conflict, even after it's been resolved?
Well, stick with me because this week I will show you how to put it down and let it go.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/moving-forward-after-conflict
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have difficulty managing situations where there is a lot of conflict, or are you a conflict management master?
Well, either way, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I'm going to show you how you and anybody else can resolve conflicts effectively.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/a-conflict-resolution-process
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have a single go-to style that you use in conflict, or are you able to switch and adapt depending on the situation?
Well, it doesn't matter which one.
Stick with me in this episode because I will help you understand how you can do things differently moving forward.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/conflict-resolution-styles
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you uncomfortable with conflict and try and avoid it at all costs? Or are you able to handle difficult situations with these?
Stick with me because this week and throughout this entire month, I will help you understand and manage conflict.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/effectively-resolving-disagreements
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you still have relationships that are still carrying the damage of unhealthy communication and conflict?
Well, stick with me because, in this episode, I'm not only going to show you how to repair those relationships, but how to build relationships moving forward.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/building-bridges-of-collaboration
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you only speak so that others can hear you, or do you communicate for deeper understanding?
Well, stick with me because this week, I'm going to help you understand why listening will get you faster results.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/be-heard-by-speaking-less
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find that people look at you as if they are saying, “Well, I can see your lips are moving, but I really don't understand what you're on about?"
Well, stick with me because, in this week's episode, I want to continue our conversation around relationships by helping you remove the conflict from your conversations.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/remove-the-conflict-from-your-conversations
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you sometimes feel like you're trapped in a lot of noise and no one's listening? Or does your communication bring mutual understanding and is effective, and you can get along with other people?
Well stick with me because, in this week’s episode, we’re going to start our journey through the relationship management competency of communication by helping you understand that you've got something to say, and people want to listen.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/every-voice-matters
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find that interacting with other people is the biggest challenge that you face in your day-to-day or are you skillful in creating and maintaining healthy relationships?
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/relationships-are-the-key-to-results
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have a clear path between where you are now and where you want to be by the end of the year? Or is the road ahead of you littered with roadblocks (those things that you've been holding on to from your past that continually get in your way) that are going to stop you from getting there?
Stick with me, because in this week's episode, I'm going to help you to retire the roadblocks of your past.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/retire-the-roadblocks-of-your-past
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you already a couple of weeks into a year, and your new year's resolution is not quite working out as you wanted it to? Or did you join me last week and start your own revolution?
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/make-your-promise-a-priority
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you tired of making the same old promises to yourself every single year only to fail before the end of January?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you change the pattern by changing the word.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/start-your-new-years-revolution
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Well, it's Christmas, and it's the end of another year.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/thank-you-for-joining-me-in-2021
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you tend to beat yourself up because you haven't gone as far as you want to go? Or are you able to look at what's past what you've done before in a way that will help you move forward?
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit:
https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/reconciling-your-past-to-empower-your-future
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you tend to focus on what you want rather than the needs of others? Or are you continually looking for ways to increase your client satisfaction?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you unpack the crucial competency of Service Orientation.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/becoming-a-servant-leader
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you struggle to read the social and political currents at work, at home, in the community? Or are you able to accurately assess what is going on around you?
Well, stick with me in this episode, and I will show you how to increase your awareness.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/the-power-of-empathy
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find it difficult to have an opinion that's different from others, or are you able to see things through their lens and have much healthier communication?
Well, stick with me in this episode, and I'm going to help you develop the skills of Social Awareness that will allow you to show more Empathy.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/the-power-of-empathy
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find that you're always in conflict with other people and that getting along with others is a little bit of a challenge?
I know for a lot of my career, that was my problem.
Or have you done a lot of work on yourself and developed the skills you need to play well with others?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you develop the social skills that will allow you to have fantastic relationships with anyone.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/developing-social-awareness
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do things often surprise you, and you look back and go, "Hey, what happened there?" Or do you take control of the situation and plan on where it is that you want to go?
Well, stick around with me in this episode, and I'm going to show you how you can finish really strong this year and go into next year acting more intentionally.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find that the speed of change in today's world is a little bit hard to keep up with? Or are you easily able to adapt and adjust so that you can move through without all the stress and conflict?
Well, stick with me in this week's episode because I will show you how to become more Agile.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find the constant change exhausting?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you learn to be more flexible and adaptable and bounce back in the face of adversity.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you feel stressed out all the time? Or are you able to stay calm and manage your stress?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I'm going to show you exactly what you need to do so that you can reduce conflict, reduce stress, and feel greater throughout your day.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:
https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find it challenging to keep your impulses in check as you navigate your emotions? Or do you have proven strategies that you utilize that help you to stay calm under pressure?
Today, I want to continue our conversation as we enter this second quadrant of Emotional Intelligence, Self-Management, by talking about a foundational competency of Behavioural Self-Control.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find yourself constantly reacting to the things that happen to you and around you? Or are you able to respond in a way that gives you the behavior that you want?
Well, stick with me in this episode and I will help you manage your response to your emotions.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here:
https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you find yourself saying ‘yes’ to things all the time, and then you go away from that situation going, “why did I do that? Now, I'm in a more stressful situation than I was before. And I haven't got enough time to get stuff done that I'm already doing.” Or have you learnt to be on top of this and to treat yourself as your number one priority.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you get frustrated by the way that people treat you or have you sat down and set some boundaries and then communicated them with people? Stick with me in this episode as I'm going to show you exactly how to do that.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you totally okay with who you are, or are you constantly concerned about what other people think of you and therefore you change who you are to try and please them?
Stick with me because this week, I'm going to help you to reverse that process so that you can operate out of self-approval.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have a calm, inner conviction about who you are and what it is that you can achieve in your life, or are you riddled with self-doubt and fear of what other people think of you?
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you have people in your world that see things differently to the way that you do? Let's face it. We all do, and it can create a lot of confusion and conflict.
Stick with me in today's episode and I'll show you why this is and what to do to solve it.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you in tune with your feelings in the moment, or do your emotions confuse you and you find it hard to navigate them?
Well, stick with me in this episode and I'll show you how to get the Emotional Awareness that you need.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you often wonder why it is that you do the things that you do? Why you think the way that you do? Does it confuse you and leave you feeling powerless to be able to do something about it?
Well, stick with me in this episode, I want to help you to understand exactly what it is that you need to do so that you know why you behave the way that you do.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
We've all heard that age-old question, “Which is most important? Is it IQ or is it EQ?” My experience is that it's neither.
So, stick with me in this episode because I'm going to help you to answer that question so that you know exactly what to do and what to focus on so that you can develop your Social and Emotional Intelligence.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you sometimes feel like you are putting a lot of stuff out there, whether it be doing a video or speaking to someone on social media or on your website or any other way that you're promoting yourself, but no one's actually understanding what it is? You're putting it out there, but no one's picking it up.
Well, stick with me in this episode, because what I want to do is have a conversation with you today to help you to understand how to tune in so that the right people are hearing what it is that you've got to say, and it enables you to get your message out there.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you know exactly where it is that you want to go, where you are now, but things keep getting in the way and stopping you from getting there?
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Have you been trying to get certain results in your life and you never seem to get there? Well, stick with me in this episode, because what I'm going to do is help you to identify the things that you are doing and not doing that are getting in your way and actually stopping you from getting the results that you want right now. Once you know this, you can set it in your plan and you can finally get there.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Accurately knowing where you are now and where you want to go is the only way that you can fully prepare for the road ahead.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Do you sometimes arrive someplace that you didn't plan to go to or do you take the time to carefully consider exactly where it is that you want to end up? Well, stick with me in this episode, because I want to show you how you can get super clear on where you want to be at the end of 2021, so that you can then plan purposefully to get there.
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you someone that's normally planned and organized or do you just run from the seat of your pants? Are you looking forward to having an even greater return on the second half of 2021 or is it just going to be the same old results?
For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com
Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here: https://www.grantherbert.com/blog
Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au
Are you holding yourself back from putting your online coaching program out there in the world because you're asking yourself the question, "Why would they buy mine? There are so many programs out there right now".
Well, stick with me in this episode because this week, I'm going to help you understand how to put together your program that uses your unique experiences and your 'Sensei Superpower' so that people not only want to buy it, but they consume it, and get the results that they want.
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Are you saying a lot, but no one seems to be listening? Are you spending a lot of time on social media, writing blogs, speaking YouTube videos, and you're not attracting clients? Well, stick with me because in this episode, I'm going to continue our conversation around growing your coaching practice by helping you to craft your perfect fit magnetic message and attract more clients.
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Are you finding it difficult as a coach to cut through all the noise out there right now? Are you putting a lot of stuff down, but nobody's picking it up or are you attracting clients and then finding out that they're not the right clients for you? Well, stick with me in this episode, because what I'm going to do is help you to be able to attract the perfect fit clients.
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Do you feel like there's a lot of noise out there right now? Noise that you're trying to cut through with your message around coaching or consulting or training? Do you feel a little bit invisible despite the fact that you are doing so much work to get your message out there, posting on social media, organically writing blogs, all these different things, but nobody is speaking back to you? Well, stick with me because in this episode, I'm going to show you how you can become the go-to expert in your particular part of the market so that you can attract the right people and they become your clients.
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So, you've launched a successful online coaching program, you've gone through the process of design create and automate, and now you have to deliver on your promise. How much time is that going to take? Will it consume all my life? Well, stick with me in this episode, and I'm going to show you how to deliver your online coaching program in a way that will give you more time and energy for yourself.
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Is your fear of people not buying your program the reason why you haven't launched one yet? Well, stick around because in this episode, I'm going to show you how to sell your online coaching program with ease on autopilot.
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So, you've gone through the design phase, you've got all this stuff out in front of you drawn out on paper, but you're not sure how to get it into an online program because you're stuck in technical overwhelm. Well, stick with me in this episode, and I'm going to show you how to take what you did in the 'mise en place' phase and combine all those ingredients together to build and create your online program.
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So, you want to build an online coaching program, and right now you're staring at your blank screen on your computer. You are frustrated, you've got no idea what you're going to create, and you're full of technical overwhelm. Stick with me in this episode. What I'm going to do is show you how to do it differently so that you go from having no idea to having a perfect fit program developed for your clients without any worries about looking at your computer at all.
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So, you're ready to become a coach and you want to do it using an online methodology. Everybody else is online, right? And right now, that's the new normal. However, you've got some doubts still about even being a coach, and now you've got to enter an area, a new realm that you are totally unfamiliar with. Well, if that's you, stick with me because what I'm going to do today and over the next few weeks is I'm going to help you to launch an online coaching program without all the frustration and without technical overwhelm. Let's do it.
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Are you really interested in becoming a coach, but you're not quite sure whether or not you could get clients? Are you already a coach, somebody that loves what you do and what you can bring to the world, but you're not really sure about this whole "selling" thing? Well, stick around in this episode, because I'm going to show you how to get your first paying client in your coaching practice.
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Do you tend to hold yourself back because you judge your future success on the same level as before, or do you cut yourself some slack and just get in, have a go, and learn along the way? Stick with me in this episode because I want to help you to understand how you can take those imperfections and use those to successfully launch and develop and grow your coaching practice.
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Do you ask your doctor for his or her credentials before you allow them to treat you, or do you focus on why you went to the doctor in the first place and look for the results of getting well? Stick with me in this episode because I'm going to show you how to use exactly the same logic when you're deciding whether or not you need to be certified to be a coach.
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So, you want to become a coach, but you're not sure what to do first? Stick with me because in this episode, I'm going to show you how to get started in your coaching practice.
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Are you finally ready to fulfill your true calling by becoming a coach, or are you holding yourself back with self-doubt and fear? In this week's episode, I want to show you why now is your time to become a coach.
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We've all heard that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Well, in this week's episode, I want to show you that you can take your mistakes and you can turn them into miracles as a coach.
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Do you love to tell stories? In this week's episode, I want to show you how you can use that love of telling stories to help you to start your journey as a coach.
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Do you always take on knowledge for yourself and then just keep it to yourself, or are people always asking you questions and you share what you've learned so that they can use it in their journey as well?
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Are you still continuing to doubt yourself about whether or not you can achieve what it is that you set out to achieve in 2021, or do you have complete confidence that you've done the work, you know what to do, and that you're going to take the action to get the result that you want?
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Do you feel stuck doing the same old behaviour all the time, sticking to that area that you feel comfortable with, or do you take risks and try new things so that you can get different results?
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Are you constantly chasing your tail and shifting things from one day to the next because you didn't get them done, or are you on top of your priorities and making the progress that you want?
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Do you find it challenging to break old habits, to change your behaviour even when you want to, or do you understand how the process works to rewire your brain and have a new way to do things?
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Are you a little disappointed about the results that you've achieved in the first month of the year, or are you fired up, on track, and heading towards your end of year goals?
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Do you already feel like you are carrying way too much baggage with you on your journey in the first month of 2021, or did you only bring with you what you needed so that you could get where you wanted to go?
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Are you falling a little bit behind with your New Year's resolutions or are you 100% on track and making progress daily?
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Have you already started working on the results that you want to have in 2021, or are you still stuck in 2020 and not sure how to move forward?
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Are you totally ready to kick some butt with your 2021 goals, or do you still need to work out what resources you need to add so that you can overcome your roadblocks and get the results that you want?
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Do you constantly have things getting in your way that stopped you from getting where you want to go, or is it all smooth sailing where you are well-planned and you overcome obstacles along the way? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around getting ourselves set up towards the end of 2020 so that we can have the greatest 2021 possible by talking about the second element of our R4 method of planning, and that is eliminating your roadblocks.
So over the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about planning. We've been talking about setting ourselves up for a win in the next 12 months, and I introduced you to the model, which is a simple, yet powerful model that I use to plan where it is that I'm going and make sure that I set everything in place to give myself the greatest possibility of getting there. A number of weeks ago, we talked about "Being Precedes Doing". So as we go through this today, I want us to keep that in the back of our mind. So the R4 method, we talked about 12 months from now, this is the results that we want to have. And then we talked about the fact that we need to reverse engineer that and have a look at the reality of where you are. Then, we looked at the roadblocks, the things that are currently stopping you from being who you need to be and from doing the things you need to do so that you can get the results you want.
And then we top that off with what are the resources that you need to add that you don't currently have, whether that be some training that you need to do, some overcoming that you need to do, some shifts in mindset that you need to have, whatever it is for you to help you to overcome those roadblocks and go from where you are now to where you want to go. Have you ever been on a journey, a road trip, and you come across some roadworks, and then all of a sudden you have to take a detour into unfamiliar territory or worse still, you are stopped in your tracks and you have to sit there for a long period of time, wondering whether you're ever going to get to where you're going to go? And those things are what I like to call roadblocks.
Now, all of us are going to have roadblocks on our journey. We're all going to have it, things that come in front of us, that hinder or slow down our progress. So today, I want to talk about how can we make sure that those internal roadblocks are taken care of as we go into 2021 so that we can become who we need to be to get the results that we want. For me, for many years, I had so many roadblocks; roadblocks that were stopping me from taking a step forward, paralysing me, and most of the challenge, most of the roadblocks that I work with with people are not physical roadblocks, but they are ones that are in their mind. So, what I want to do is speak about and isolate some of the common roadblocks that I see when I work with my clients that stops them from getting where they want go. And year after year, they feel like they haven't achieved what they want to achieve, and they create even more roadblocks by being down on themselves, even more.
The first roadblock I want to talk about are your false and limiting beliefs. Now, we've talked about these before. These are things that you have made up based on what people have said to you, what you've seen, the experiences that you've had. And the particular beliefs that I want to talk about here are the internal beliefs, the beliefs about yourself, the beliefs that are attached to your idea, entity. What you do is one thing. Who you believe you are, your identity, is going to stop you or propel you towards the things that you want to do. So, what I'd love you to do right now is just pause this video. If you're listening to it on the podcast, just pause it and have a conversation with yourself, with your big self leading and facilitating the conversation, and ask yourself this question: What am I believing about myself right now that has stopped me from getting the results that I want? So, go ahead right now. Stop this, go ahead, and do that.
So, welcome back. How did you go? I'd love to see comments down below as to what came up for you. For me, it was things that were related to my fear of rejection. So if I do that, then this will have happen. And it was all based around that fear of rejection, that fear of not being good enough, the fear of not being loved. Now that we have isolated and identified those beliefs that we have about ourselves, the next step is we talked about a few weeks ago is to challenge those beliefs, to get out of the emotional brain, up into the logical brain, and to challenge the beliefs and get rid of all those hearsay and circumstantial evidence beliefs that we have and get the real facts.
Remember I said it's not what you do that's going to be your biggest roadblock. It's who you believe you are. So, who do you need to be in 2021 so that you can get those results that you want to have? And now that we've looked at those beliefs, what I want you to do, as I said, is challenge them. Are they really true or are they beliefs that you've clung on to because having those beliefs stops you from moving out of your comfort zone? When you identify the belief, when you challenge it, when you look for real evidence, so you might have a belief that people don't like me. That belief may have come from particular instances in your childhood, at school, whatever, or even in your adult life. And what you've done is formed a generalised belief that everybody doesn't like me.
So, what we can do when we come up into the logical brain is we can look at it and go, "Is that true?", and look for evidence to the contrary. So, thinking about your friends, your family, the relationships that you have and writing down, "Hey, this person likes me and this person and this person and this person, and this is the reason why I know that." So, we're now looking for a different type of evidence. If it's a belief that I'm too young, or I'm too old, we look for evidence of people that are the same age as us that have done the same thing. So, the first roadblock that I really encourage you to work on as you're going into 2021 is the roadblock of your mind, in particular, the false and limiting beliefs.
The second area of roadblock are those physical roadblocks. The things that you are putting up in front of yourself, the things that you are doing or not doing that is sabotaging your results. So, these roadblocks is like putting sugar in your petrol tank. It goes along okay, and then all of a sudden it starts fluttering and carrying on and now you're stranded on the side of the road and you don't know where to go to get it fixed. What are the habits that you have, what are the things that you've developed over 2020 that could change and give you a different result in 2021? For me, it's about my eating. So during COVID-19, I've developed an unhealthy habit of eating too much of the wrong things because I'm at home and the refrigerator is just near my office. It's not too far to walk out of my studio and down and get something to eat. I've found myself eating too much. So, that becomes a physical roadblock because it reduces my energy, clouds my mind, and it makes me feel less about myself than I need to so that I can be who I need to be to move forward. Other physical roadblocks are lack of skills, things that I haven't yet learned, things that I'm not proficient in, that I need to be for me to be able to go to where I want to go. So the second area, we want to look at the physical roadblocks.
As we've talked about many times, navigating our emotions in an unresourceful and an unhealthy way is definitely going to create an environment where you are working against your priorities, where your environment is not conducive to you being productive, and your energy levels are not where they need to be. What are the emotions that you constantly experience that lead to those unresourceful behaviours? When I work with people in the area of Emotional Intelligence, this is where I do a lot of work helping them to understand in the moment the emotion that they're going through and what effect it's having on their thinking and their behaviour. And then being able to develop strategies to navigate that emotion in a healthy way is a key element in them being able to be who they need to be to get the results that they want.
So, there we have three areas of roadblocks and there could be more. However, what I want us to do is just have enough to focus on right now so it doesn't become overwhelming and we can go, "Okay, what's the thing that I can do next to ensure that I have less of those three types of roadblocks, less of the roadblocks in my mind, the physical roadblocks and the emotional roadblocks, the things that came up and held me back in 2020 and the years prior to that?" When we work on ourself, and that's what I'm really inviting you to do here, and prepare ourselves to be who we need to be so that we can then do what we need to do, you can have a 2021, which is your best year ever.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, when we talk about the fourth area in the R4 method, as we put our plan together for 2021, and that's the area of resources. I'll see you then.
Is your current reality riddled with blind spots, or do you have a clear and accurate understanding of where you are right now and have a level of an awareness that's going to allow you to set the right action goals moving forward on the journey for 2021? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around getting ourselves ready and planning for a 2021, which is the best year we've ever had by talking about the second area of the R4 method, and that is your current reality.
So last week, we talked about the results that you want to have, and you set some goals and some areas of improvement that you wanted to see at the end of 2021. But now, what we need to do is come back to the other side of the equation and go, "Where am I now?" and reconcile your current reality. So to recap, the model, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago when we started this journey together, is we're looking at the results that we want 12 months from now. And then we reverse engineer it, like we're going to do today, to, "How does that look different right now? What's my current reality?" And when we do that, we've now got a gap. We've got a gap between where we currently are and where we want to go. Knowing that in an accurate way will allow us to set up a plan to not just do some tasks, to get those goals, but to become who we need to become so that we will get them.
Next week, we're going to talk about roadblocks. We're going to talk about the third area, those things that would stop you from getting those results and may have already been stopping you from getting them already. So today, getting a clear picture of your current reality will help you next week to be able to identify those roadblocks, and therefore the week after, we'll be able to talk about the resources to help you overcome those. I know in my own military and corporate career, I had many people that were telling me things about me that I didn't want to listen to because if I change, that would be uncomfortable and I would need to become someone that I didn't think I was capable of becoming. And it wasn't until there were a number of instances in my corporate career where I finally started thinking, "Hang on, there might be some truth in what these people are saying."
I took a deeper look at myself because I was at a position where it was really starting to hurt, and I found that I hadn't been all that accurate in assessing my current reality. So when we assess our current reality, there are two things that can challenge us and actually give us an unhealthy view of where we think we are. The first of these is to underestimate our ability, underestimate where we actually are right now, underestimate the level of success that we already have, because that then keeps us down to where we think we should be. That can be very dangerous because having a deflated view of yourself is not very empowering.
The second is just as dangerous and that's to have an overinflated view of where you are right now, to operate out of the Performance Trap and tell ourselves lies so that we feel better, and that if anyone else wants to know about our plans, we can say we're up here, but we're really down there. So, what we want to do is we want to reconcile and coming to the true North with that. We want to get the real story. Now to do that, you may need to go back to some of the things that we've been working on. You may need to get a lot more healthy understanding of who you really are. Remove those limiting and false beliefs, remove the Performance Trap, get that mini-me under control, all those things that I've been working with over the year with you and helping you to understand the things that are holding you back. When we get to that position where we're ready to look at ourselves in a healthy way, where we're doing that forward-focused reflection, and we're realising that we are assessing ourselves and doing an audit of our current reality from our logical brain for the sole purpose of allowing us to work on some things that's going to help us to get where we want to go.
So, it's not an exercise to beat ourselves up and go, "Oh yeah, look, no wonder you haven't got where you wanted to in 2020 because you're this." No, it's about empowering us. So, looking at our reality can either be an anchor that holds us back or an engine that propels us forward. And that's what I want to do today is to help you to look at it in that way. So, there are a few steps that you need to go through to be able to get a real healthy, accurate reality.
The first thing we need to do is we need to get our reality for us. So, this isn't about getting a reality that's part of the Performance Trap, that's pleasing others, that makes us look better in the eyes of others. This is getting a true start point. If we were putting together a road trip and we worked out our timings, we worked out our fuel, we worked out everything, not something that I used to do all that often, but anyway I've learned, if we say, "Oh, look, we're a little bit further down the road than we actually are," when we work that out, we're going to run out of fuel. And it's exactly the same if we overestimate or underestimate where we actually are. So to do this, we need to get our big-thinking voice going, that one that wants us to succeed, to propel us forward. And we need to go, "It's okay that there are some things that I haven't yet achieved. It's okay that I'm in this actual reality right now because I am still growing. The journey is still going. We're not at the end point yet." So, step number one is to make sure that we look at our reality to serve us, not to serve others.
The second thing we need to do is break down our reality into the areas that we have goals in or results that we want 12 months from now. So for example, if it is around our health, we need to look at our health reality. If we've got finances here, we need to look at our financial reality. If we've got relationships here, we need to look at the reality of our current relationships, et cetera. You get the picture. So, what we're doing is getting a clear picture in all those areas of the gap between where we are now and where we want to go. What I'd love you to do is to stop the video, stop the podcast, and just go through that process before you go on and do anything else today. Get that process down. "So, these are the results that I want. Where am I actually now?" When I work with people with Social and Emotional Intelligence or working on their stress levels or working on their behaviour and their communication, I can use actual psychometric and neurometric assessments to help to get a clear understanding.
And if that's something that you are interested in, then go on the website and put in something in the contact us area, and I'll come back to you on that. However, this exercise is one that you're going to do to help you with what you currently know about yourself. Another thing that you may want to do is get a coach. Get someone who can facilitate that conversation with you, so that you get challenged when they sense that you are in congruent with what you think and what you're saying, where they help you to navigate that internal dialogue and get that big voice out there doing this exercise, rather than the small voice. However, get yourself started today. Considering those two things that you want to do as well, just put in this time.
Having a clear reality that is true, that's been reconciled in the right frame of mind is a crucial step in being able to set up a plan to go where you want to be in 2021 so that you know exactly what you need to do and which steps you need to take as we go into next week and look at removing those roadblocks.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, when we continue this journey of the R4 method to set ourselves up for a fantastic 2021 by removing your roadblocks. I'll see you then.
Do you just take off on a journey and hope that you end up somewhere better than you are now, or do you decide where you want to go first and then put a strategic plan together and take the action so that you get there? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around planning and finishing strong in 2020, so that we can have an even greater 2021 than we thought would be possible by unpacking the first element of my R4 method, and that is choosing your destination.
For many years, I would go on road trips with myself, which wasn't so bad, but with the family, where we just head off and I wouldn't book a hotel. I wouldn't plan where we were going to stop for lunch, where we were going to get fuel, all those things. I would just take off because that was just fun. That was free. That was just doing what you wanted to do. The challenge with that though is on more than one occasion, we got pretty close to being caught out with no fuel, no food, kids in the car, tired, hungry, wanting to go home. And I remember this one time in particular we'd plan to stay at this beautiful place on the beach, which was about two and a half hours from our home, and invest a night there as a family, get up in the morning, have a great breakfast on the beach before we went home.
Unfortunately, because I didn't plan the journey, I just was winging it, and because that's what freedom is all about, right? Yeah, wrong. And what happened was there was no hotels available. So, I went from hotel to hotel, to hotel, to hotel, and there was a big event on in the area and we had no where to stay when we had little toddlers in the back of the car and my wife was less than pleased.
So, what I ended up doing was foregoing our night at the beach and we drove home the extra two and a half hours so that we could put our kids to bed. So, it was a great idea to be free and just go out there and take things as they came. However, the result that I got wasn't the one that I wanted. So remember last week, we started talking about this and we started talking about this being a process, and we're going to look at the year of 2021. And whether you're looking at this for your life in its entirety, or you're doing it with particular parts of your life, the first thing we need to do is decide where we want to land.
What are the results that you want to have at the end of 2021? And then we looked at the fact that we need to look at, "Well, what's my current reality?" How does it look different to that right now? And we'll talk about that next week. Then, we talked about the fact that there could be some roadblocks that are going to stop us from going from where we are now to where we want to go. And then we looked at the fact that we need to add some resources for ourself and around us so that we can overcome those roadblocks and get the results that we want and get to that destination at the end of 2021. Planning is a good thing. This running by the seat of your pants and hoping that things will get better is not a strategy. So, what I want to do is I want to unpack some thinking with you and show you the steps that I take to set those results and therefore choose my destination.
Step number one is to just brainstorm your thoughts. There's a lot of places where you could go, there's a lot of destinations that you could go to, and there are many dreams that you may have had. There might be a bucket list just like you have with your travel and all those sorts of things. So, the first step is to get them all out of here and get them onto paper. And I'd love to go analog with this. I don't go near the computer. I just get out a piece of paper and I use some mind mapping and I just get it down on paper. These are the things that I could do, these are the places that I could go, the results that I could strive for. And the key when doing this is to make sure that we control that inner dialogue, and we talked about that weeks ago.
If you are having challenges with that, go back and listen to that episode. But by controlling that inner dialogue, it means that our big voice is the one that is in control. So when that little voice is in control, we got to write something down, we go, "No, I couldn't possibly do that. I'm not good enough to do that. Look at the results that I got this year." So once again, this goes in tandem with that process of forward-focused reflection that we talked about last week and making sure that we go into the past only to look at our wins and the lessons that we've learned to take forward. So using our big voice, we think of somewhere where we'd like to go, result we'd like to have, and get it down on paper and just come up with a big list. It doesn't matter how many things are on there. Just get them down as many as you can. No need to put them in any order at this point. We're just brain dumping our thoughts.
Number two is to confirm by elimination. You might have plenty of things down on your list that you could do, some places that you could go, some results that you could have. However, not all of those will serve your overall picture, your overall plan of what you're doing over the next 12 months as a part of your three year plan. Some of them you might be doing for the wrong motive. So, what I've done is devised myself a filter that I use with myself and with all my clients. It has two sides of the ledger. On one side of the ledger, I asked myself the question, "For what purpose?", and on the other side of the ledger, I asked myself, "At what cost?"
So, let's have a look at those two things. So, "For what purpose?" means, "Why do I want to go there?" Why is that a result that I want? And we check the motive for which we are doing it for and make sure that it's a positive one and it's not feeding some negative sabotage strategy, some inner uncertainty that we have, some lack of confidence, some people-pleasing Performance Trap, all those things that we continually work through. What I want you to do is have a look at the things on your list and write down the reason you want that. If the reason is something that's going to take you forward in your true priority goals, the things that you truly feel that you're on the planet for, then they get a tick. If they are found to be less than, where they're feeding one of those unhealthy habits that you have, then we push it aside and we eliminate it. And therefore we end up with a list of things that we are doing or want to do for the right reason.
Now that we've got that list, the second thing that we do is we apply "At what cost?". Now, I'm not just talking about a financial cost here or even a cost in time. What I'm talking about is looking at it from a perspective of the overall plan. We've talked about this before, where people have to do lists that never end, and they've got so many things on their list and they look busy and they feel busy and they're overwhelmed and they think that they're moving forward because they're ticking things off, but they're not really ever achieving things, and that was me for many, many years. So, what we want to do here is use this as a second level of elimination and pay her back on the things that we're going to put in the results column and therefore plan to achieve in 2021.
So if the cost takes us away from our true priorities, if it's a shiny thing, something new, because we feel that the path that we're on, we're not good enough to do that, if it's something that's going to give us a full sense of significance, or it's going to make us feel better about ourselves to overcome what other people are saying or anything like that, then we give it the flick and we take it off the list. So by using the process of "For what purpose? At what cost?", we ended up then with a list of things that we could do that are going to serve us, the people around us, and the greater good.
The third thing we want to do now is we want to commit to our choices. Now that we've got this list of things that we're doing for a great purpose, that fit and are in line with our overall vision and mission or whatever it is that we use for our life, what we want to do is make a commitment to ourselves, not to anybody else, to self that these are the things that I want out of 2021. And then we can go back to that R4 model and in the results column, we've got those things ready to go. How do we commit to them?
Well, the first thing we do is we put them in our calendar somewhere. We put them into our plan. We take them further than just going, "These are things that I'd like to do", and we put them somewhere that reminds us that we're going to do them. Another thing that we can then do is come up with a statement that's in the present of what things look like in 2021 at the end of December.
So, we start off by writing out a statement that says, "It is the 31st of December 2021 and...", and we list out then the things that we have achieved. And at the end, we put the icing on the cake and we finish it off by going, "And I feel fantastic, fulfilled", whatever it is for you. What we've now done is we've taken a look at what we would like to do, what are our priority things to do. And now we've committed to putting those things into practice, we can then formulate our plan, put projects together and actions for each of those projects step by step by step what we need to do to get there. This is what we need to do first though. We need to have a list so that we can reverse engineer the year.
By using this process of setting the results and choosing your destination. You've got a greater chance of ending up where you want to be at the end of 2021, rather than just turning up somewhere and hoping that it's better than where you are now.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Next week, we will go into the second area and we'll have a look at your reality. So, make sure you hit the subscribe button and the little bell so that you get a reminder to let you know to come back and to join in again, where we reconcile your reality. I'll see you then.
Are you still stuck in a COVID bubble, where you lack certainty and clarity about what's going to happen next year, or have you reflected on the past, learned from it, and now you're putting together your plan so that you know exactly where you're going in 2021?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to start a conversation with you where we take a look at how we can use a method that I'm going to teach you to get the results that we want out of 2021.
There's no doubt, this has been a very unusual year. Plans that we all had coming into the year have gone awry, and for most of us, it's been tipped upside down. We've had to learn to do all these new things like pivot, and we've developed a new normal and all those things, and it's been challenging. And along the way, we've learned a lot of stuff. We've learned some things that we can do differently. We've learned a lot about our own strength and what we've got within us to be able to handle anything that comes up ahead of us.
So now that I've helped you to get equipped and ready to move beyond COVID-19, let's take a look at how we can set ourselves up so that we get more done in the first quarter of 2021 than most people will do out of their entire year.
For many years, I just ran on the seat of my pants. Whatever came across my world, I dealt with it then. I was never a planner. I was never someone who was organised and it wasn't until I got that way that I was able to achieve the things that I've been able to achieve so far. So even though we might be more of a creative person, we need to be able to organise that creativity.
So no matter what we do, we need to have a plan. We've heard it said before. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail. The thing is today's plans need to be different to the plans that we use to do. No more can we rely on a 10 year plan where we've got everything in place, and we know that we're going to go here and then to here, we're get to achieve these things, because we live in this VUCA world that we've been talking about, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and the speed of change and the frequency of change is never-ending.
So, we need to look at things a little bit closer than what we did before. But, what I love to do is I love to have a vision of where I want to be three years from now, do it in a way that I'm speaking in the present as if it's already happened, and I've got that vivid picture that's out there. As I've said to you before, what I teach my clients to do is when they put those plans in concrete, they just add a little bit more water so it doesn't set too quickly, and that way we're able to, when things change, we're able to adjust our plan without throwing the baby out with the bath water. And then what I'd like to do is bring it back to a year from now and have a look at, "Well, okay. For me to be there three years down the track, where do I need to be at the end of the next year?"
So over this month, I'm going to give you a framework so that you can actually get a plan together so that going into January, you hit the ground running, not wait until February like most people do to even look at what am I going to do this year. I'm not talking about setting New Year's resolutions. We know how successful they're not. It's a proven fact that gym memberships go way up in the first week of January. For the members of those gyms, it's really hard to get on a piece of equipment because there's so many people there, but you just have to wait a couple of weeks and there's plenty of equipment because New Year's resolutions are a wishlist. They're something that I'd love to happen, but if it's not a plan that has implementation strategies, then it's probably not going to stick.
To do the planning for the entire year of 2021, I'd like to introduce you to a four-part model that I've created called the R4 Method. Now, there's a lot of science gone behind this. The reason why it's called the R4 Method is that the four words that I use all start with the letter R. So, let me walk you through them.
Let's have a look at a timeline for the next 12 months. So if we were to draw a timeline across the bottom here, that's what it's going to be, or that's going to be our path for that 12 months. Now, what we want to do is we want to have a look 12 months from now, and on that end of the timeline, we want to put the word "results". What are the results that you want 12 months from now? So at the end of 2021, when you're sitting down and you're doing your reflect, your refocus, ready to relaunch into the next year, you'll be able to tick off these things.
What are they for you? What things do you want to look different to how they look now? So, that's the first thing is work out your results. Then what we want to do so that we understand what needs to change, what we need to do is come back to this side and have a look at the next R, which is our reality. The question I asked myself, there is, "Well, that's where I want to go, but how does it look different to that now?" So in those things that you've put down as your results, whether they be around your level of development, around where you live, around your business, around your career, whatever they are, now we look at, "Well, how does that look now?" And we do a reflection, a forward-focused reflection on where we're at with those things.
So now that we've got the results that we want and the reality of how it looks now, we've got a gap and what we then can do is work out, "Well, what do I need to do to go from where I am now to where I want to go?" Now, the challenges that are along the way in the journey, there are always what I call roadblocks. So, the next thing that I do is draw a line under that and go, "What are the roadblocks that are going to get in the way that would stop me from going from where I am now to where I want to go?" And those roadblocks could be things like mindsets, beliefs, limiting or false. They could be skills that we haven't yet developed. So, I'm not talking about external roadblocks, things that we are not in control of. What I like to do here is have a look at what are the things that I'm currently doing or not doing that have stopped me from already having those results.
The next thing is we need to look at, "Well, to get from where I am now to where I want to go and actually overcome those roadblocks, what are the resources that I need to add?" Now, the resources I'm talking about here, what new beliefs do I need to have, new behaviours, new competencies, new skills? Who else do I need to get involved? Do I need a coach or a mentor? Do I need someone that gives me that and accountability? Do I need to do some more professional/personal development? Do I need to learn some more skills? Do I need to learn to either eliminate or delegate some of the things that I'm doing? So, what are the resources that are going to help you to overcome the roadblocks and go from where you are now to where you want to go.
So, that's the four-part process, the R4 Method, results, reality, roadblocks, and resources. Now, we're going to go more deeply into each of those over the next few weeks. And what I'm going to help you to do by the end of December is have a plan ready to go into the first quarter of 2021. So to do that, what we now do with our timeline is we break it down into four even chunks. And then we go through the same process of what are the results that I wanted the end of March in 2021. And then looking at those same things, we go through the reality, the roadblocks, the resources, and we get a plan together. But today, I just wanted to introduce you to the concept. I want you to start thinking about those things so that when we go into each of those R's, you've already got some information that you can put in there. So over the next month, you can get yourself prepared so that in the first 90 days of next year, you get more results than you've done from your entire 2020. For most people in our country take two months off for two days of holidays, you're going to be able to hit the ground running, and January is going to be the start of your best ever year. Well, that's it from me for this week. Join me again next week, where we unpack the model and we look at setting our results. I'll see you then.
Are your thoughts always hijacking your attention and holding you back from the things that you want in life, or are you able to filter them in a healthy way to produce the behaviour that you need? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around all things human behaviour and Emotional Intelligence by learning with you how to take our thoughts captive.
All conscious behaviour starts with a thought. So if it's not a good thought, if it's not a positive thought, it's probably not going to produce positive behaviour. Negative thinking creates a breeding ground for negative outcomes, whereas positive thinking moves you towards the behaviour that you need to get the results that you want.
Ruminating on all the things that are wrong with your situation creates roadblocks that hold you back from the thought patterns and the behaviour patterns that you need to change your situation for the better. It's time to take back control of your thoughts before they do you harm. Negative or unresourceful thinking is like the impurities that exist in a precious metal that de-value it. We have to remove those impurities so that it can reveal its true beauty and its true value. When they heat the metal up, it brings the impurities called dross to the surface and that enables them to skim it off the top and be left with just the purity of the metal itself.
So too when things heat up in our circumstances those unresourceful thoughts rise to the surface, just like the dross in the metal. It's at this point that we need to learn how to remove them, skim them off the top so that we are left with the best version of ourself. We take them captive, call them out for the impurities that they are, and then replace them with more resourceful thoughts that's going to help us to move forward and get the results that we want. So, let me take you through a five step process to be able to not only take them captive, but to reverse the negative process and design a thought pattern and an inner dialogue that's going to help us to move forward and get the results that we need right now.
Number one is being able to recognise those unhealthy thoughts in the moment. Remember: Social and Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be aware of what's going on for us emotionally in the moment, and it's the same here. We need to be able to have space and stop and go, "Okay, I'm recognising this dross is coming to the surface." So, that's the first step. To do this, we need to be on guard to be able to hear that small voice rising up, that mini-me, those thoughts and those beliefs coming to the surface. So, we need to make sure in this step that we're always looking for thoughts that aren't going to service.
Step two is to do an audit of our thoughts. It's just like when a suspect is taken captive on your favourite crime movie and they take them in, and they sit them down, and they ask them questions, and the whole purpose is to get the real truth. The whole purpose is to uncover anything that's not really true, any inconsistencies in their story. So, this step is where we use our logical brain and we take inventory of what our thoughts are saying. So, step two is to do an audit of your thoughts.
Step three is to challenge the validity of what you uncover. So when we go back to our story of someone in a crime movie, whether they're in the police station or they're in the courthouse, they'll be giving this story and there'll be things that come up that just don't add up, or they don't fit the story that's going to give you the outcome that you want. So, what we need to do is challenge the validity of that. We need to object to it and go, "Well, hang on a minute. No, that's not true." So if I'm thinking a worst case scenario, I can bring that back to reality by going, "Well, hang on a minute. No, that's not true. That's my small voice working on my fears, working on my negative beliefs, my limiting, my false beliefs." And we can call it out and say, "No, that's not true, and I'm not going to accept that as being so."
Step four is to offer an alternative. So now that we have taken it captive, we've interrogated it, we've done an audit on what it's saying really and found the truth, we can now offer ourselves a different way of thinking. We can flip the beliefs. We can turn the thinking around. We can look at, "What do I need to think that's going to give me the energy, the impetus, the behaviour that I need to move forward and get the results that I want?" So, the next step, number four, is to offer ourselves an alternative to the negative or unresourceful thinking.
And step five is to change the narrative. We tell our own story, we're in charge, we're in control of what we let become our truth. So now that we have taken it captive, we've done an audit, we've challenged the validity and we've said, "No, that's not going to serve me. That thinking is not true", we now move forward with a different thought pattern, with a different self-talk, a different inner dialogue, one that is scripted in the positive, one that allows us to move forward and to do what we need to do right now to change our situation for the better.
You can become the person that you need to be so that you can do what you need to do to have the results that you want in your life. You just need to take back control of your thought life.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we start a new conversation and take all that we've learned over the previous months and we prepare our 2021. We look at a process of what we need to do to write our own version of the script and to plan to have the best year that we've ever had. I'll see you then.
Do you find yourself at the mercy of a never-ending to-do list each day, or are you able to flow and be present as your calm and relaxed self? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and VUCA Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around the shifts that we need to make so that we can thrive and survive in this VUCA world by talking about how to make the shift from doing to being.
We are human beings, not human doings. And to sustain a high level of performance in all areas of life, we must remember that this is an important distinction and change the way that we look at our day. For many years, I ran around the planet trying to get things done and that, coupled with my Performance Trap trying to please others, I had a long list of things not just to do for myself, but the things that I needed to do for others, because I said I would so that they would like me. And a lot of us today end up being at the mercy of a never-ending list.
We've talked about this before in my debunking the myth of time management that one of the things that we need to shift from is having a to-do list; a list that has all these things that remind us of what we're not getting done. In those old school teachings that said, "Check your list off and then look at your list at the end of the day and move the ones that you haven't got done into tomorrow." And we all agreed that that list never ever changes. It never gets smaller. So, what I've had to do is make this shift in my mindset first that changed my behaviour. And when I made that shift, it was able to then allow me to focus on my priorities, to control my environment, and to have more energy to be who I want to be in every area of my life, not just in my business, in my career, in that "getting things done mode" that I was operating in.
So, if that's something that you would like to do right now, let me unpack for you three key principles that we must take hold of before we can then employ practical strategies around being rather than doing so that we're able to escape the overwhelm and get into flow and enjoy our life way more than we were before.
The first one is to be then do then have. I remember when I did some coach training many, many years ago, it was a model that we used in our coaching to help people to understand and to get clarity around who do I need to be so that I can do the things that I need to do, to have the results that I want to have. That old-school mentality of just work out what you want to have and then put a list together of all the things you need to do to get there is the reason why most of us get frustrated and we never get down the track as far as we want to go, because the person that is doing the things so that you can get them ticked off on the list is normally the roadblock. It's normally the behaviour, the thoughts, the mindsets, the beliefs, the things that we've been talking about over the last few weeks that actually stop you from doing what it is that you need to do.
So, we recognise what we need to do. When we write a big list out, we've got a great plan and then we are frustrated by the fact that we don't see any results, and that's because of self-sabotage strategies, the ceiling we place on our self with self-doubt and all these things that come in a lack of Personal Power. One of the main reasons why I am so passionate about Emotional Intelligence is because it teaches us and helps us to become more powerful in our own identity. And we've talked about some of that stuff previously as well. So, the first thing we need to do is take that model that we've used in coaching and apply it to our life and ask ourself the question, "Okay, who do I need to be right now rather than what do I need to do?"
So for me, I have many roles in my life, just like you. I get to be a husband. I get to be a father. I get to be a coach. I get to be a business owner. I get to be a speaker, whatever it is. I get to be a friend. I get to be a learner, and there are various roles that we all have in our life. So in applying this first principle of be-do-have, what it does is it says, "Okay, who do I need to be right now when I'm being a dad? Who do I need to be right now when I'm in my business?" And to be able to then know what other skills and attributes, the thought patterns that I'm going to allow to come into that space and time, because I'm being that person right now, not just doing things.
And that allows distractions to be put aside a lot more easily, because, for example, I'm working from home and have been for a long time now and there are many distractions outside this studio where I'm talking to you now. There are many things that I could be doing. Right now, we are in a situation where my children have finished their high school certificates so they're home, and I like to spend time with them and they liked to spend time with me. So, I could quite easily just stop doing this video now and go and have a chat to them, but no, I am being someone who is teaching right now. I am being who I need to be in this moment. So, when I have finished being this, I have it planned in my calendar to be a father in a different part of my day.
Now, some people might think that's a little bit too OCD and too structured, but let me tell you, it is so freeing in being able to be okay with what needs to get done in my day. Because I know when I go to have lunch today with my children, I know that I can be fully present with them because I've already planned when I'm going to get this stuff done, when I'm being that different person when I go back to work. So, principle number one is be before you do, and then you'll have the results that you want.
Number two is to be more intentional. So, we understand now that we need to be various people in any given day, in a week, in a month, in a year. Now, I'm not talking about having different personalities and changing our behaviour and being fake and those sorts of things. What I'm clearly talking about is I need to be a certain way when I'm coaching a client that I wouldn't be like when I was having a conversation with my wife. I need to be different in my approach when I'm the learner than I am when I'm the leader. So, what I'm talking about here is being more intentional and setting a focus and a plan that allows me to be that person in that particular timeframe.
So, how do we play that out? Well, what I do is I make sure that I have my calendar set up so that that tells me when I need to be which person, when I need to be a husband, a father. So, I've got family time. When I need to be the business owner, who's a coach and a trainer and a speaker, and I've got that blocked away. When I need to be just me and have some me time. And when I need to be the business owner who has to do the admin or the strategy and all those other things that I need to do so I then know that I need to be fully present in doing that, and it allows me to put those other distractions aside. So now that we know we need to be before we do, we need to be more intentional so that we can stay present in that particular period of time to be that person without brain-switching and thinking about things that are outside being that.
Number three is to change hats strategically. When I'm doing a training in an organisation, whether it be online or face-to-face, which I'm not doing a lot of face-to-face right now, what I like to do is instead of coming in just being a trainer, I also like to bring my coach's hat along. Then, what I do is get permission to when I see a mindset or a behaviour that's not serving that individual or the room to change my hat from being a trainer to being a coach so that I can remove that roadblock with them and everybody can go forward. So, I like to look at the metaphor of wearing a hat. I don't physically have a hat to be a father, to be a husband, to be a trainer or speaker, whatever. I have a metaphorical one. So, I know that when I leave my studio and go to be someone else, I need to make that change.
And for me, I like to use the metaphor of a hat. So to do that strategically, we need to have structures, ways of doing things so that we can then transition from being whoever we are now to who we need to be in that next period of time. I remember one of the things that I did practically years ago that I don't do now, but it really helped me because working from home is something that can create a lot of issues here, where you can, if you stop your task and go and do something else in your house or something like that. So, the other thing that I've found is that you can work really, really long hours because you're home and the commute is gone. So, what I did was made sure that I put a different lock on my office than the one that was on my house.
And when it was time to stop being the owner of the business and go home, what I did was lock up my office, went and got in my car, drove down to the post office, collected my mail from my postbox, came home and opened the door with the key to my house and allowed myself to step into being a husband and a father. So, what we need to do as we shift our hats is then set a new intention to be who it is that we need to be right now. To do that, we need to leave stuff behind. So for me, that closing that door of the office and locking it was a trigger for me, an anchor for me to go, "That's finished. It's there and I'll open that again tomorrow.", and then to go and do another activity where I can lose those thoughts and start focusing on who do I need to be next, and then come home and be that person.
I remember in my corporate career many years ago coming home one night and my little twins were then only 15 months old, they're now 18, so it's a quite a while ago, and I remember the phone was going off all the way home, and the constant need to get stuff from me, and I got home and I still was carrying all that, as you can hear it in my voice right now. And I opened the door and my twins are running towards me going, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!", and I went, "Can you let me get inside the door?", and their little faces just dropped. And the face that I saw on my wife was one of confusion and not understanding why I would speak to them that way, knowing how much love I had for them and what they meant for me. The reason it happened wasn't anything to do with my relationship with them. It's because I did not transition from being the corporate executive to being a dad. So, number three is to make sure that we change hats strategically, rather than just go from one to the other without setting that intention.
So when you make this shift from doing all the time to being, not only will you get more things done, the truly important things in your life, but you'll enjoy the journey a lot more as well. Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, when we continue this conversation by helping us to understand how to remove that unhealthy dialogue that goes on in our head that stops us from doing these things that we're talking about and taking your thoughts captive. I'll see you then.
Are you holding yourself back with self-doubt and an unhealthy dialogue, or are you your own best cheerleader who inspires you to move forward and get the things that you want out of life? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around shifting your identity by helping you to eliminate your false beliefs.
Most of us get around on a daily basis ruminating on our past failures, focusing on the things that we got wrong and where we didn't achieve what we wanted to achieve. We believe false evidence from our experiences and what other people have said because that's comfortable and keeps us safe and stops us from moving forward in the uncharted waters. We listen to our small voice that reminds us all of our shortcomings and we listen to our critics. And to make this shift and have one of these that you want to have beyond this time right now, we need to be able to shift to do things differently.
We need to reflect on our past wins and on the things that have taught us, the lessons to get us to where we are right now. We need to challenge those false beliefs and those assumptions and look for real evidence. And we need to let our big voice, that confident inner dialogue take us forward into the new success and the new adventures that are out in front of us. For many years, I just got around focusing on what didn't work, focusing on the reasons why I couldn't move forward. I'd see people who were successful and I'd feel happy for them. However, I would compare myself to them and go, "Yeah, I can see how they can do it, but me? I certainly couldn't do that because of these reasons."
I would carry around a list, metaphorically, that I could pull out at any time and give you hundreds of reasons why it wouldn't work for me. And the reason was is that I had developed a conditioned mind with false beliefs, with limiting beliefs that I could bring up at a moment and help me to stay safe and not move into things outside my comfort zone. And then one day, I'd had enough and I thought it's time to move past these things. I don't know about you, whether you've had those defining moments in your life and I've had them, and I've let them slide, and thankfully this time there was enough pain in my life and enough reason to move forward that I got myself a coach and I worked through my roadblocks and what was holding me back. And what I want to do today is just unpack three things that I worked on and that I now get the privilege to work on with many people all around the world to shift their mindset and behaviour so that they can become who they need to be and move forward into the life that they want to create.
Number one is forward-focused reflection. When you visit the past, the key word there is visit. I know the past can be a comfortable place sometimes because we go back into the past and there's times where it was simpler and things with this and things with that. However, there's also times where you got evidence of your beliefs, where you had an experience that you put a meaning on about yourself. And when we go back into the past, if we stay there too long and we ruminate on those things, it's a negative exercise. But, it's a great thing to go back in the past so long as we do it with forward-focused thinking. It's like when we drive our car, we've got a big wind screen in front of us and we've got a little mirror up here that we look up at every now and then to see what's going on. And then we go back to looking forward because if we don't look forward, we can't see where we're going. And if we can't see where we going, we're not going to get there.
So, it's the same when you reflect on the past. It's a quick look in the mirror to go, "Hey, what went well? What did I win at? Where can I gather some evidence that will help you to move forward? And where can I gather some lessons that I can take with me so that I do different things moving forward and therefore get to where I want to go without all the stress and conflict and whatever it is for you?" So, the first thing is to learn to do forward-focused reflection.
Number two is to look for real evidence, evidence that says I can, rather than I can't. We've all seen a lawyer in the courtroom in our favourite TV show and they're presenting evidence to the jury and the judge is there and the opposing counsel's there and it's all dramatic and it's all good fun. However, whenever there is doubt about the evidence, the other side will object and appeal to the judge to have that evidence thrown out because it's just hearsay or it's circumstantial. And that's normally the evidence that we pick up, things that people have said third-hand, circumstances, experiences that we've had that we've put a meaning on. And that is all the evidence that we have to present a case to ourself of our worth.
So, number two is to look for real evidence and to do that, we need to be able to logically process that in the prefrontal cortex, not in the emotional brain. In the work that I do with Emotional Intelligence, it helps you to be able to do that and to debunk the false evidence, to object to it and go, "No, that's not true. Just because someone said it about me doesn't mean I have to make it my truth. Just because I didn't get it right once doesn't mean that I'm not able to get it right next time." So, number two is look for real evidence, not for hearsay or circumstantial evidence.
And number three is to retrain that inner dialogue, that mini-me. You've trained that inner dialogue. You've trained that small voice that's inside you, that gets in your ear and lets you know when you're going to take you outside your comfort zone, when you're going to do things that are against those false beliefs that you have, those limiting beliefs. You might decide to get up on stage and talk in front of 10,000 people, even though you fear doing that because of what you think people are going to think about you and you go, "No, I'm going to do it." Let me tell you, if that happens, your small voice, your mini-me will get your attention because you've programmed it to stop you from doing things that are going to lead you to harm.
It's like my little grandson. If he would have turned up here right now and say my name, "Grandpa! Grandpa!", and I was to then ignore him and just keep talking to you, he would get my attention. Why? Because I've taught him from the time he could speak that all he needed to do was say my name and I would drop everything else and give him my attention. And that's exactly what you've done and I've done with our internal dialogue. So, the first thing I would need to do with my grandson is acknowledge him and say, "Hey! Come here, dude. Just hang on a sec. I'm going to finish doing this, and then you and I are going to get ice cream." Now, it's a metaphor. You and I both know that if it doesn't change in 14 seconds and I'm off getting ice cream, he's going to be at me again, but you know what I mean, and it's exactly the same with your inner dialogue.
So as you take that step towards the stage or to do something different and your mini-me screams at you to get your attention, if you show it the hand and keep walking, it's going to get louder and louder until it gets your attention because you've taught it to do that. So, the first thing to do is acknowledge it and say, "Okay, I hear you. I know I taught you that. However, we're about to learn something new. So, watch, listen, and learn with me." So, the great thing about our inner dialogue is that we put it there and that means that we're in control. You are in control of changing it. So, the third thing that I learned to do was to retrain my mini-me.
So, there's just three key things that you can do right now in your own life to be able to shift your mindset and your behaviour so that you can remove that self-doubt, have self-confidence and self-approval, and move forward into whatever it is that you would like to see become your reality.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, as we continue this conversation around shifting our identity and becoming who we need to be so that we can have different results by unpacking a very important conversation around Being Precedes Doing. I'll see you then.
Do you constantly beat yourself up and doubt your own abilities, or are you super confident and know that you have everything within you that you need to be who you need to be in every area of your life?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around who we need to be in the VUCA world so that we can lead ourselves, we can lead what we're doing, and we can lead others without all the stress and conflict. And I want to continue to talk around those shift areas that we unpacked over the last month.
So, we've talked about the three particular areas of leadership. We've talked about personal leadership, we've talked about our professional or project leadership, and we've talked about people leadership, and we agreed that leadership is not about getting people to do what you want them to do. It's about building an internal set of characteristics of the leader that enabled you to flow in the strategies, in the competencies, in the behaviours that allow for a healthy environment and relationships. So, let's go back now to the first area, and that is the area of personal leadership. And let's go into that first area, and that's where we work on our identity.
My identity is not what I do. That's my activity. My identity is who I believe I am. I can go from doing something that I'm not happy with to it affecting how I feel about myself, unless I navigate that situation with Emotional Intelligence, unless I've built up my Personal Power and I've got a hold of my self-talk and that inner dialogue that we've talked about before. And instead of nursing and rehearsing things in a way that stirs up the emotion and reminds me of all the times that I haven't done well, I can bring it back up into the logical brain and I can look at what I could do differently moving forward. So, working on our identity is crucial to be able to lead itself, let alone lead projects or lead other people. The first question I always like to ask myself and ask the people that I work with is this, "Who are you?" The number one element of your identity is who you believe you are.
So much in our world today, we look to others to let them dictate who we are, what they say about us, whether or not they like our posts, whether or not they're friendly to us. Those things don't dictate who we are. And when we let them, then we're not in control of our own identity, and that's where the problems start. And I certainly am someone who lived that life for many, many years. I've said this before, Eleanor Roosevelt said it so well, "What other people think of you is none of your business." Yet, we make it our business all the time. We're so focused on the external validation from others, rather than validating ourselves.
So, what I want to do is I want to empower you to do the latter. To be able to go, not from a arrogant point of view of going, "I don't care what anyone else thinks. I'm me." No, from a confident space that says, "You know what? I'm not there yet, but I'm a work in progress and I'm happy with where I am right now. I know what it is that I need to continue to work on on a daily basis. And I know it's all about continuous improvement. It's not about perfection and I'm happy with what I see when I look into the mirror, and I don't just mean physically."
So to do this, the area that we need to work on is our self-awareness. It's the first quadrant of Emotional Intelligence. And if you were on our summit a couple of weeks ago, you would have had a number of speakers talk about the things that I want to bring up today, and that is being able to remove those blind spots and to have clarity around the truth, to be able to remove those false and limiting beliefs about others and get the real story, and then make a plan out of that, to improve in the areas that we need to improve.
The first point here is that we need to take responsibility for deciding who we are. We need to take responsibility for building up our own identity. It's not an external gig. It's not something that we look to others for. They will be part of the process and how we filter what they say and do will determine whether or not it positively builds us up or negatively erodes who we believe we are. So, they are part of the process. But at the end of the day, the buck stops here. I am responsible for my identity. You are responsible for your identity, and that is the first place that we need to get to.
So now that we've made that mindset shift and we've decided, "Yes, if it is to be, it's up to me", the first thing that we want to work on now is realigning ourselves with who it is that we want to be, who it is that we feel we were created to be. And to do that, we need to come back to purpose. We need to come back to our own values. We need to come back to what's most important to us. We need to come back, not just to what our family have led us into because of cultural differences or this is what we believe in this family, but getting a true revelation yourself of what's most important to you and why it is that you're on the planet, why do you exist on a daily basis.
When we do that, whatever we operate out of from there will drive us towards our true purpose. And when we're working in our true purpose, we're being congruent. We are not rubbing against something that's false. We're not living the imposter syndrome or feeling like a fraud. We are in flow. And that's the whole idea of working on that first area of identity is to go from feeling like a fraud to please others, to get along, to make sure that people like us to feeling in flow with who I am. And these things all have a knock on effect in terms of things like our energy. When I invested days and days on trying to be who I wasn't, it was very energetically depleting.
However, when I'm in flow of just being who I am, being okay with that and operating out of that, I've got energy to burn at the end of the day. And I'm able to then come away from my business, from my practice, and I'm able to invest the energy in the other areas of my life like my family. So, the second thing after we've made that decision that it's our responsibility is to get back to purpose.
The third area to focus on is to then look at the things that we believe about ourselves and to do an audit. And I love the word audit because it's a logical brain process, to do an audit and to look for evidence as to whether or not it's actually true. If you believe that no one likes you, I guarantee that coming up into your logical brain, there would be evidence of interactions that you've had this week, where people were pleasant and friendly and got along with you and people even reached out to you. So, the logical evidence actually debunks the negative that we've been believing. So, the third thing that I want us to do now that we've made that decision, that it's our responsibility and we've got back to our purpose is to challenge and flip our limiting and false beliefs. And in future videos this month, I think I'll actually do a video just on that to help you to be able to get that done.
So, there's three things that you can do to be able to get control of your identity, to take back control of who you believe you are, and to build a foundation, to build a platform of who you are so that out of that, you can then become who you need to become so that you can do the things that you need to do in the various areas of your life.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, where we will continue to look at this area of identity, of Personal Power, of beliefs by looking at how to actually do that belief audit and to flip those negative and false beliefs and clear them out of the way so that you can continue to become who it is that you want to become. I'll see you then.
Do you find that what you've been taught over the years is no longer working for you, or do you keep yourself up to date with the latest benchmarks and trends?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around leading yourself and others in a VUCA world by going a little bit deeper around one of the topics that we talked about last week, and that is removing the myths of the 20th century.
So over the last few weeks, we've been talking about VUCA shifts. We've been talking about leading yourself, leading process, leading others in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous VUCA world that we now operate in. 2020 has been one of those years that will stand out in all of our lives, where it's been even more of those four things on a daily basis.
One of the challenges that we talked about last week was where people continue to navigate today's world with last century's strategies, last century's tactics. And one of those areas that really got a lot of feedback in my social media posts over the last few weeks was where I talked about work-life-balance and time management.
When we, as leaders, both of self, of staff, and of people, try to navigate that using out of date tactics, out of date strategies, it's no wonder that we are more exhausted at the end of the day. It's no wonder why we don't get as much done as we want to get done. It's no wonder that there's so much conflict and stress and things going on because what worked before, what got us to where we are, isn't going to take us to where we need to go.
And it's a pet peeve of mine when people continue to teach stuff that was from before to just continue to get their point across and to get their programs out there or whatever it may be. So, one of the things that I want to make sure that I do is always stay up to date. I'm always teachable. I believe you're either green and growing or you're ripe and rotting, and I'd rather be green and growing any day.
So, I'm continuing to make sure that I test and I measure what it is that I'm being taught. I'm looking at its validity and its relevance right now. And that's for me in my own life and my own journey. I'm a believer of just-in-time learning, rather than just-in-case learning. So, it's not about just getting heaps of information. It's about getting strategies, getting learnings, getting tips for right now that I can implement in my daily life and get results in any area of my life.
The two myths that I talked about that many people related to with are the myths of time management and work-life-balance. Work-life-balance in itself is an oxymoron, and it's no wonder no one ever achieves it.
Let me tell you, lots of books have been written about it. Lots of people have created programs around it. Lots of people who do what I do have taught you how to go after work-life-balance. And it was a number of years that I realised that that was the biggest challenge. It's something that is not achieved.
It's a myth. So, I'm going to do what I can to help you to unlearn that teaching from the past so that you can draw a line in the sand and be ready to be able to go forward with what you need to learn to navigate your life right now.
Work and life are not separate. Work is something that is a part of life. Work is something that you do for a particular part of your life. And I know for a lot of us, that's a big chunk. However, it's not in competition with life. It's actually a part of it. So when we're trying to balance two things that are in essence are one, they're together, no wonder we're not able to do it.
For me, being able to look at my life as the overarching thing, and then to look at the different elements of my life, whether that be with my own self-care, my family, my friendships, my career, my work, whatever it is, it's being able to integrate those in my life with each other.
It's about being able to make sure that I have my priorities in place, like we talked about a few weeks ago. My true priorities, not my priorities that are performance-based lead, making sure that I'm giving enough energy to my priorities, not trying to get it all perfect. Years ago, I read a book called Perfect Balance, and I thought, "This is fantastic. This is what we're looking for." And then I realised that the challenge with that as well is the word "perfect".
When we're trying to take something that's fluid and we're trying to put it into a particular container in a perfect way, we're not going to get the results we want. In fact, it's going to be quite frustrating. Taking a different look at it, having a shift in mindset to realise that it's not work-life-balance we're looking for, it's not perfect balance we're looking for, where we've got one of those wheels that we used to use years ago, and we broke it up into the various parts of our life and we made sure that we had an equal amount of time and energy went into each of those.
No, that doesn't work, and it never really did. When we have that shift and realise that what we've got to do is look at the fact that balance for me is probably different than what balance looks like for you. Even the word "balance", let's shake that up a little bit. Balance is like, "Whoa, I'm on the edge. And I'm trying to hold on here. I'm trying to balance. I'm riding on a one wheel unicycle instead of having a tricycle that's going to keep me on the ground." No.
So, it's not about juggling, it's not about balancing. Language is so important. What it's really about is allocation of energy to priorities. And the work that I do around productivity, and we'll talk about time management in a moment, we're going to dispel that myth as well.
But, the area I do in productivity is all about having enough energy, having enough bandwidth, as I like to call it, to get done and be who I need to be in every area of my life. So, the first myth that we want to really leave behind today is the myth of work-life-balance.
So, the second myth, as we've talked about, is this thing called time management. Managing time is not something that is our responsibility or within our control. I don't know whether you've ever tried to turn your clock back an hour and then have the world fall into place with your schedule. It doesn't work.
It's bad enough when we have daylight savings change here in Australia or other places of the world. And it throws everything out into pandemonium and people turn up on calls an hour late or an hour early or whatever. So, it's not about being able to manage time and manipulate time.
And the three areas that I introduced you to a couple of weeks ago that you can control, that you have some sort of control over, and that you can strategically move towards it is your priority management, your environment management, and your energy management. And I believe that the way that you manage your priorities and your environment affects your energy.
So, let's stop trying to manage time and let's see what we can do to get our priorities in the right place, to get our environment conducive to be able to shift when we need to. So, I'm not talking about an environment that is a utopia. Everything's clean, everything's perfect. I've got my calendar all set out and I can just run that and I know it's going to work. No, because things happen.
What I'm talking about is having an environment that allows us to flow and change without it being a big disruption, to be able to have things set in concrete. I call them my non-negotiables that say, "I need to get these done. I'm going to prioritise these before I do anything else. Because if I get those done, they are moving me towards my bigger picture. Then, I can do other things." So, the second myth that we want to dispel and replace and shift our mindset from is the myth of time management.
So, how do we do this? Let me just give you a few little tips that I've learned from great mentors, from people who I've listened to over the years who I've then gone and implemented what they taught me and has allowed me to get my level of productivity to get my energy management a little bit closer to where I'd like it to be.
And I want us to understand that too that I'm not all it here. I don't have it all together. I'm a work in progress. And I believe that that is one of the keys is we need to realise that things will shift. Things will change. So, it's continuous improvement, not perfection, that I seek.
So, the first area that we want to look at which affects both the whole work-life-balance thing that we want to shift and time management is our priorities. Going back and having a look at, "Okay, what's my purpose? What's my bigger picture? What is it that I'm really wanting to achieve here? What is it that's most important to me and the future direction that I have?"
And then getting clear on that, getting clear on, as I said, from a self-care perspective, not a Performance Trap perspective of pleasing others, what's most important to me? What fits my values? What fits my ethics? What is my overall purpose in life? Why am I here? Why am I on the planet? What was I created for? Getting that big picture in place first, before we learn any skills.
I like to make sure that anything that I put together with my team, for our clients, for the people that we serve, starts at a foundation level. And that's the foundation of who do I need to be. So, who do I need to be in my work today? Who do I need to be at home today? Who do I need to be in my business today? So, getting those things like our priorities, our values, what's most important to us, our "why", however you language it, getting that together first is the most important thing.
And the second thing is then to shift to that next level, and that is the skills. So, learning skills around productivity, leveraging efficiency, whatever it is that you're wanting to increase your capacity in now that we've got the foundation built. And some of those skills that I have been able to learn are contrary to what I'd learned in the past.
Now years ago, for productivity, we would do things like write out long lists. And then what we would do is we would look at that list and go, "Okay, what are the A priorities? What are the B's and what are the C's?" And then we'd go back to the A's and we'd go, "Okay, what's the most important A? Is that I want?"
And then we'd put a two and put a three, and then we systematically go through that list. And before we went to bed that night, we would get that list and we would take the things that we didn't get done, and we'd moved them onto the list for tomorrow. And the next morning we would go through that same process again.
Now, whilst that may have worked back then, the volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world that we live in right now does not allow that to be a strategy that works anymore because to go through that process in that much detail, something's probably already shifted while you're doing that.
So for me, it's just about having a clear understanding first at a bigger picture level as to who do I need to be to get the things done today that I need to get done so that I can have the results that I want to have.
That whole be-do-have model, which still works today, and then working on those areas of my identity, working on my personal power, making sure that I've got my energy management in place and working on the self-care and those things, rather than tactics for writing out lists or putting things in calendars or those sorts of things, because it's that energy management which is going to help to get more things done.
That's all I wanted to do this week, because a few of you had really related to that post and said, "Hey, I can totally understand that." And I'm really glad that you've done that shift in mindset.
So, what we're going to continue to do moving forward is, now that we've done those shifts in our mindset, we are going to get into some practical strategies around how to navigate the VUCA world, how to get more productive, how to position ourselves for the win, how to have relationships that are collaborative, rather than cause conflict. And those areas in our personal, our project or professional, and our people leadership.
By the way, last week, we finished our Emotional Intelligence Online Summit. It was amazing. We had people from all around the world and if that was you and you were there, I'd really love you to get in touch. Tell us what it was that you learned from that. What decisions did you make at that summit? What shifts did you make in your mindset that's going to change you and allow you to navigate beyond COVID-19?
Those videos are still up for a couple of days. So if you haven't come along or you didn't register for the event and you would love to hear some about that, please go to www.emotionalintelligencesummit.online, and you can get the recordings there. So, I just wanted to say thank you to all the speakers and to our team for making that happen. It was an amazing event.
Well, that's it from me for this week. Join me again next week, where we go deeper and look at more strategies to be able to make the VUCA shift and become the leader that we need to be in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that we're working in. I'll see you then.
Are you a great technical manager or an inspirational people leader? Do you find it really, really effortless to be able to get people to come along on the journey with you, or do you have to sometimes drag them, kicking, and screaming?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around the shifts that we need to make to be a leader in the 21st century VUCA environment by talking about the area of people leadership.
So over the last few weeks, we've unpacked already two of the elements of VUCA Leadership that, firstly, being our personal leadership, leading self, and that's the foundation of all leadership. We talked about the fact that leadership is not something that you do. Leadership is about who you are. Leadership is a set of internal characteristics that help you to inspire yourself and others, that help you to operate out of integrity, to have empathy, to communicate well. All the skills come out of who we are, not out of what we do.
We also had talked about the fact that, unfortunately, a lot of people think that leadership is all about getting people to do what I want them to do. So, organisations will want trainers to come in and train these soft skills, as they call them, rather than working on the areas that we've already worked on of building a foundation around the leader through self-leadership.
Then, we moved into last week talking about the professional leadership or process leadership, those practical capabilities and skills that we need to have so that we can get stuff done. We talked about the three shifts that we needed to make in that area, around our performance, around our positioning, and our productivity. So now that we've built that foundational platform, we are now ready to be able to move into that third area, which is people leadership.
There are three key areas that we need to make shifts as the VUCA leader. The first area in our people leadership is around our resilience. And our resilience is a word that we hear a lot. And right now we are needing to develop resilience more than we ever have before. That speed of change and the environment that we operate in means that if we are not building up skills of resilience, we are setting ourselves up for burnout.
How do I know that? Because I've been there, I've done that. I operated that way before. One of the key areas in our leadership that creates an environment for burnout can be in our people leadership. When we feel less than capable of leading ourselves, let alone leading others, we can operate in a way that is not sustainable. And we talked about that last week as well.
So, this shift is about going from being stressed to being strong. It's about employing mindsets and capabilities that allow us to operate as one of the leaders in our organisation that operate as part of a team, operate with people that are wanting to work with us. So, resilience is vital if we're able to be a sustainable leader in the VUCA world.
The second area, and this certainly has an impact on our resilience as well, is our relationships. Relationships are the key to leadership. How we operate with others, our interpersonal relational skills, are definitely a crucial component of the vocal leader. It's about being able to go from conflict to collaboration. It's about being able to communicate in a way that people want to listen and that they hear and they get the message and they get the vision.
It's about being able to go beyond putting out fires to creating an environment where people want to work together, where people like working with each other because they look at each other's strengths, where they're being led by someone who cares about them, who shows them empathy, but keeps them accountable as well.
So, the second area, and I do a lot of work in this area for myself and my team and the people that come to me for this type of training, is in the area of relationships. And that certainly is something that we can do some more work on. I just wanted to unpack that with you today.
And the third area in people leadership is how we now get our results. So last week, we talked about in our own professional, our own process leadership, how we can be more productive, how we can sustain our performance, how we can have skills and strategies to be able to get more done.
As a leader, we need to be able to not only get our own stuff done, we need to be able to get stuff done by inspiring and leading others to get it done for us. In fact, a better way of saying that would be to get it done alongside us. And then, the collective efforts of everybody creates the result that we want. This is about having a shift in our mindset, firstly, and then in our behaviour to go from someone who gets our results by doing to getting out results through the people that we lead.
Now, obviously, to do that, we need to be able to have a lot of capabilities and a lot of competencies around emotional intelligence. And that's why this is part of our conversation. When people feel valued and we've got our relational skills working well, when we are demonstrating and we are advocating resilience and strategies to make sure that we can bounce forward from adversity challenges that we face, that we're able to lead others through that by our own example, then we are in a much better position to lead people, to get the results that they want.
Leadership is a process. Leadership is about taking individual gifts and talents and being able to put those together to create an outcome. And one of the key areas that I'll leave you with on this one is to make sure that when we are inspiring others, inspire them with their "why", not with our own.
I remember as a corporate leader, I would go to the meeting, we would find out what it is that we had to do. And then, I would come back and go, "This is what we need to do, and this is why we need to do it." And that "why" was coupled to the organisation. And I wondered why people weren't as excited about that.
What I learned to do over the years, through some great leadership and mentorship from others, was to focus on their "why" and be able to take what it is that we had to do and break it down to each individual person in the team and go, "Well, what's in it for them when they do what their part is in this process? What will they get out of that?"
And motivating and inspiring them around that meant that, I was then able to get the results that I wanted through them, rather than dragging them, kicking, and screaming.
So over the last few weeks, we've talked about what it takes to be a VUCA leader. A leader that operates in an environment that's constantly changing, that's volatile, it's uncertain, it's complex, and it's ambiguous. And we've broken that down into the three key areas of leadership and the shifts that we need to make in each, around our personal or self leadership, around our process or professional leadership, and around our people leadership.
And I know for me that this is a constant journey where I'm continually learning and keeping up to date. And it's about making sure that we do just that. Right now, we're leading in an environment that we've never perhaps needed to lead in before.
I know in my career, in my lifetime, I've never led a team in such uncertainty. So, adapting and making shifts in my mindset and my behaviour is critical if I'm able to get people over the line at this time.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, when we start to unpack some of these different elements of those nine shift areas for the VUCA leader, and we go a little bit deeper and get a little bit more succinct on some of the behaviours and mindsets that we need to change. I'll see you then.
Do you feel like you're always operating out of chaos, running around, trying to get stuff done all the time in your daily life, or do you tend to lead yourself well through the processes that you need to do and therefore feel like you're in control?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around the shifts that we need to make to operate as a leader in the VUCA world by unpacking the second area of our VUCA shift, and that is in our process or our professional leadership.
So, last week we started the journey by talking about our personal leadership. We understand that leadership is about who I'm being. It's not a set of things that I do. Leadership is about a set of character traits of who you are, not just a set of skills that you need to learn when you're in a management position and you want to get other people to do what you want them to do.
We talked about the fact that there were three areas where we needed to make mindset and behavioural adjustments or shifts so that we could be the leader in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that we now operate in.
So this week, I want to unpack three areas that we need to make, these shifts in our process leadership. A process, or depending on what area you work in, your professional area of leadership is all about getting stuff done in the time that we've got to do it with the resources that we have and in amongst everything else that we've got going on.
So, whether you are talking about this in the context of your work, your career, your business, or in your entire life, I want to make sure that you understand that these shifts are critical for everyone. Not just those who we think are the leaders. I believe that everybody's a leader, and we talked about that last week, that it starts with leading self.
So, let me take you through and help you understand what these three areas are. And then in coming weeks, we'll unpack some of these based on your feedback, and I'll give you some help as to what you can do next. The three areas of process or professional leadership that I want to talk to you about are your performance, your positioning, and your productivity.
When I think of performance, I like to think of cars. For many years I was involved with a race team. I loved cars. I started my career as an automotive engineer. I pulled my car apart on the weekend, just because I knew how it worked. And I know my mom would look at me, she'd go, "What are you doing that for?" And I go, "Well, 'cause I can." And I was just fascinated by that.
These days, as I've matured, cars are not as important to me. However, I love watching a high performance vehicle do its thing. I love to watch a high performance vehicle not only do its thing, but I love to watch pit crews. And I love to watch how the leadership of a race team can be then put into leadership as a metaphor for what it is that I teach in the VUCA leadership programs that I run.
In performance, I love thinking about a car because it helps me to realise that, just like a car, I need to have some certain things to make sure that I can perform at the highest level.
The first thing is that I need to have a well-put together car that's maintained well. I need to have great fuel in it without impurities, and I need to have great tires. I need to have a great pit crew who understand things that I don't need to about the car, and I go to when I need to get those sorts of things fixed. And I need to understand that if my car is not running to its optimum level that I'm not going to get the performance out of it that it was created to give me.
Then that in itself is a great metaphor for us to look at our own performance. If we don't put the right stuff in, if we don't get the tune-ups that we need, if we don't have a pit crew around us, we're not going to be able to perform at the level that we want to perform.
Now, the second thing I want to talk about with performance is that there's been this misunderstanding around the term "high performance". And one of my greatest coaches and mentors over the last few years, Brendon Burchard, he runs the High Performance Academy and I read a great book of his called High Performance Habits. And in that, he gave me some distinctions around performance that were in line with, aligned with how I was thinking.
Because for years, this high performance thing has become hustle and grind. "Let's get as much done as we can. Let's work from daylight until dark so that we get all this stuff done." And that's a challenge because operating a race car at that high level for long periods of time, it's going to reduce the performance and it's the same with us.
So, that's why I call myself a sustainable performance coach and performance needs to be looked at that way. How do I operate so that I not only get done what I need to get done, I can do that over the long period? And as things change in this volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, VUCA world that we're talking about, I'm able to make those shifts without it burning me out.
So, in this area, we need to make a shift from going from low performance to high performance, but we need to be able to do it in a way that's sustainable.
The second area that we need to make shifts in in our professional, in our process leadership is in our positioning. Now, what I'm talking about here is as a leader, we need to place ourselves not always at the front, not always being the one that's got all the answers, that's doing everything, that's making all the decisions.
We need to position ourselves so that we can allow others to come along on the journey with us and position ourselves in a way that we're able to sustain that performance. I know for years I would say things that were not helping like, "Oh, look, I've just get it done myself." It's a lot easier for me to just put my head down, my tail up, and work hard and everything will fall into place, rather than looking at how I can harness the collective ideas and the collective efforts to get these things done.
So to do that, we need to position ourselves as a leader who is not one that blends in, but one that stands out, however, stands out for the right reasons. I know in my military career, my early corporate career, most of my corporate career, I was one of those leaders that stood out, but I stood out because I wanted to prove myself. I stood out for the wrong reasons.
I stood out because I created problems all the time. I created challenges. I've created conflict. I had a low self-worth, low self-image. I therefore tried to prove myself and I worked too hard on doing that, and that created some challenges. What I'm talking about here is standing out as someone who is someone I want to follow. Standing out as someone who is vulnerable, someone who knows they don't have all the answers and they also value my input. So, the second key area is positioning.
The third area that we make our shifts in to operate in professional or process leadership in the VUCA world is in our productivity. And our productivity is not a dirty word. It's not something that only a few can get right. It's not about making lists, and it's not about all those things that we learnt last century that served us well then. It's about getting to a position of leveraged efficiency.
If we can get more out of our race car without needing to invest more in it, if we're able to drive it in a way that our fuel is going to last longer, then we need to do less pit stops, therefore we do better times, then we win the race. So, productivity is all about going from being in chaos to getting back into control.
So to do that, there are three areas that I teach. Now, firstly, before you can take advantage of these areas, you need to unlearn something that you, like me, probably learnt in 20th century leadership and that is this thing called time management. I place it up there with work-life-balance. They're things that never worked anyway, and they're definitely not going to work now.
Work-life-balance is a myth. It assumes that work and life as separate and time management assumes that we can actually control time. We can wind the clock back. We can get more than 24 hours in a day and that's not something that we're able to do. So instead, there are three things that I teach in the area of productivity, and we might unpack some of these in coming weeks, but I just want to give them to you now.
These are things that you can control when you have the right mindset and the right capabilities and the right competencies are being built. And we've been talking about lots of these over the weeks and weeks that we've been together having this conversation during this Beyond COVID-19 series that I'm doing.
So, the first area that we can control is our priority management. Now, when we have a set of clear priorities and we know what's important, by the way, important to us, important to the entire overall big picture, not important to our self-talk, our unhealthy inner dialogue that says, "Oh, look, if I get that done, they'll like me", and that approval-driven priority, but our true priorities that come out of who we are, out of our purpose.
When we manage our day, our week, our year around those priorities, then what we achieve will be aligned with what our purpose is and what it is that we're trying to achieve overall.
The second area is environment management. We live in a world of distraction. People go out to a restaurant and they're on their phone while they're eating and they're conversing with each other. And I know I'm guilty of this. I'll be watching a movie on TV with my wife, but I'm checking Facebook at the same time. This creates brain switching. The brain is not designed to multitask. So, we need to make sure that we control our environment and an untidy desk, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, is not a sign of genius. It's a sign of a lack of organisation.
Having an environment that has creative colours in it, that is clean, has a calmness about it, creating an environment that allows you to actually have some time on your own to get some stuff done and have some time that scheduled with others, rather than being reactionary all the time. And having that open door policy that says, "I'm a leader that allows my people to just come and talk to me when they need to." That doesn't help you, and it definitely doesn't help them. So, the second area is environment.
And then the third area is energy management. When we operate out of high performance in a sustainable way, when we look after our brain, our body, when we hydrate, when we'd get the sleep we need all those things. When we are working on the true priorities in a way that keeps us congruent with who we are, when our environment is such that we can find things when we need to, we are not distracted, we actually end up having enough bandwidth, as I like to call it, enough energy to sustain ourselves and get the things done that we need to get done. We also are able to do it in a way that creates greater results in the individual tasks and projects that we're doing.
So, that's the three areas that I chunked down in when I'm working on productivity. And productivity, as I said, it's not about just having lists and getting stuff done. It's about leverage efficiency. So, there are the three areas that we make shifts in our thinking and in our behaviour to be the VUCA leader who can lead a process and operate and have capabilities in their professional area.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, when we unpack the third area of shift in our VUCA shift program and that is the area of people leadership.
People leadership's not where it starts. We've now built a platform and you're ready to go to that next level. So, join me again next week, when we continue our conversation around VUCA leadership and how we can operate, not just in COVID times, beyond COVID-19 in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that we now operate in. I'll see you then.
Are you always in control with what you get done in a day, in a week? Do you find that the most challenging person to lead is yourself?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year, and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around leadership by talking about the first area of leadership and that is Personal Leadership.
We started last week talking about how we need to make certain shifts in the way that we lead because we're leading in a different environment to what we were 10 years ago. We now work in a VUCA world. You've heard that term before. It's about volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It says things move really, really fast. We don't have all the answers and sometimes we've just got to make it happen with what we've got.
Leadership is not a set of skills for telling other people what to do. And unfortunately, I have experienced a change in mindset around what leadership is. I speak to people all the time and they think it's all about managing people. It's about getting people to do things. It's about achieving results by leading people. I want to challenge that again today by saying that leadership is a set of internal characteristics of the leader.
There's a great principle that I've learned when I did my coach training many years ago and it's the Be-Do-Have model. It's not all about just getting things done. It's about who do I need to be so that I then do the things that I need to do to have the results that I want.
So, the 21st century VUCA leader needs to start with the area of leadership called Personal Leadership, leading self. As I said, sometimes for me, I was the hardest person to lead. And I know that I got promoted into positions as I went through my military and my corporate career, and I thought, "Fantastic!" Had a big smile on my face and it looked good, but I was thinking, "You're kidding. I don't know how to lead myself. How am I supposed to lead other people?"
And it was then that I discovered that I needed to build a platform of my own leadership and then others would follow that. So, let me unpack what elements we work on in the area of Personal Leadership.
The first area is our identity, and we've been doing a lot of work around that over the last few months. That personal power. Who do we think we are? What limiting or false beliefs that we may have? Our level of confidence and our ability to know that we have it within us and around us everything that we need to be able to get ahead in life. A lot of people say things like, "I'm not a leader. Leaders are born and I wasn't born a leader." And beliefs like that hold them back from being who they need to be to lead themselves, to lead process, and to lead people.
The second area is the area of intelligence. IQ is not enough. Technical ability is not enough. We all need to work on our emotional intelligence, our social intelligence, and creative intelligence. It's not just about the ability to do the job. We need to be able to interact with our self. We need to interact with others. So therefore, these skills that we've been talking about over the last few months are vitally important to lay the platform so that you can be who you need to be to lead in any situation.
The third area is the area of intention. To be a great leader of self, we need to know how to set intention. We need to be purposeful and have plans put in place so that we know where we're going, whether that be for our career or our whole of life.
So, the three areas of Personal Leadership that I work on in the program is our identity, our intelligences, and our intention. And we've done a lot of work on those things over the last few months. So, if you haven't listened to those, I suggest that you do go back, refresh, go through what it is that we were talking about in the areas of personal power in particular so that you understand what it is that you need to be able to lead self.
What are the key crucial competencies of this VUCA world for you to be able to lay that platform of self leadership? We need to make shifts in our mindset and in our behaviour the volatility, the uncertainty, the complexity, and the ambiguity of the marketplace that we're working in. So, let me just finish up today by unpacking the shifts that we need to make in those three areas of Personal Leadership. Let's start with identity.
The shift that we need to make in identity is to shift from feeling like a fraud to being in flow with who we really are. It's all about authenticity. It's all about getting back to our true identity, rather than running that Performance Trap to get the approval of others. So, the first area we need tonight is in the area of our identity.
The second shift we need to make in our intelligences is to go from singular focus to a multifocus in our intelligences for us to be able to lead ourselves and then go on to lead process and lead others. There are many other skills that we need, and these are not the warm and fuzzies. These are not the, "They'd be nice to have, but they're not as important as the technical skills."
In my experience, the word soft skills is used incorrectly because it's a lack of these competencies that create all the challenges. So therefore, these are the harder skills. These are the tangible skills that we need to be able to navigate this thing called self-leadership. So, the second area is to make a shift in our intelligences.
The third area that we made to make a shift in is in our intention. We need to shift from being scattered and just running by the seat of our pants and we'll just see what happens tomorrow to planned and purposeful so that nothing is a surprise. Now, I know that particularly in the environment we're in right now, things happen, things change.
However, when we are a person that is well-planned and we anticipate change and we have contingencies in place, all we need to do is shift the goalposts, rather than throw the baby out with the bath water and going to overwhelm and get nothing done. So, the third area that we need to make our shifts in is the area of intention.
So, there you have Personal Leadership. It's all about our identity, our intelligences, and our intention. And it's vital for us to be able to get that area sorted out before we move into leading process, before we move into leading people.
So, if you're like I used to be and you think leadership is about getting people to do what you want them to do, consider a mindset shift to go, "No, no, leadership starts with me." Leadership starts with self and set some goals around where you can work on your Personal Leadership.
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week, where we go into the next area where we need to make these shifts in our leadership, and we look at the area of Process Leadership. I'll see you then.
Do you see leadership as a set of skills that you need to get other people to do what you want, or do you see it as a personal responsibility and a set of internal character traits? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to start talking to you and having a conversation around the area of leadership.
We live, work, and operate in what's been called a VUCA world. That is one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and never has that statement been more true than it is right now. Effective leadership is a critical component of navigating the VUCA world. So, what I want to do is I want to start a journey today to unpack what I call the VUCA Shift.
In the 20th century, leadership was relegated to a set of skills that you needed to be taught, if you are in a management position, if you're in a position whereby you needed to get others to come alongside with you and to do the stuff that you had to get done. But, I want to challenge that.
For me, leadership has always been a set of internal characteristics that you would possess to be able to not only lead others, but to start by leading yourself. Not only has the definition of leadership changed and evolved, but we're in a VUCA world. We're in the 21st century. So, no longer can we rely on the teachings that we used to rely on last century.
We need to upskill ourselves so that we can learn and develop and implement the competencies that will help us to navigate that volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that we now operate in. We could start off by talking about the distinction between management and leadership. And in my opinion, the two are totally different.
Management is about process, whereas leadership is about people. I don't know about you, but nobody wants to be managed. No one wants to be controlled and told what to do, whether that be from themselves or from others. So, the first thing, as we start this journey together this month, that I want us to get a hold of is that management does not have a place with people.
Today's world is way faster than it used to be. Things are changing so quickly and so regularly. The speed of change, coupled with the changes in technology and the way that we do things, means that we need to learn different skills. And I call it a shift from what we used to do, hence the name VUCA Shift.
A VUCA leader needs to be able to operate in a VUCA world. And what I want to do is just unpack some distinctions around how we lead in this 21st century. In the coming weeks, we will unpack some individual components of that, but today is about getting an overview so that you know that this is the journey that you need to come on with me this month. There are three key areas that I break this down into.
So, the VUCA leader needs to make shifts in these three areas. The first area is personal leadership. This is all about leading self, and this is where it starts. And we're going to talk about that next week. The second area is process leadership or project leadership, where these are skills that we need to employ to be able to lead change, to lead productivity, to lead the outcomes that we want. And then, the third one is people leadership, and it's a sequential journey.
A lot of leadership training goes straight to people leadership without building the foundation of personal and professional or process leadership. And this is where all the challenges come in. You get promoted to a leadership position and you think, "I can't even lead myself. And now you want me to lead others?" And this is where the challenges create abrasive leadership and create situations where leaders are not enjoying the process either.
So, by building a foundation around personal leadership, around your identity, around your intelligences, and around your intention that we've talked about in previous weeks, then you're building a platform to be able to then learn and employ the next lot of skills. And then by adding the professional skills around leading process and around your performance, around your productivity, these areas will help you to achieve personal results.
And then we move into the people leadership area where we learn to be more resilient and respectful, and we learn to have better relationships, and we learn to get results through people, rather than just from ourselves. So, all these things take a shift. A shift, firstly, in mindset, a shift in the skills that we have, a shift in our behaviours and in the way that we implement our strategies and the things that we're going to learn as we go along the journey.
So, a VUCA Shift is designed to help a leader to be empowered to lead themselves, to lead process, and to lead people in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous marketplace that we will operate in today. And right now, in 2020, it's never been more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, or more ambiguous than any other time in my career.
So, this is why I wanted take us through this journey this month. So, come along on the ride, where I'm going to show you in each of those individual areas the shifts that we need to make and then how to make them. 21st century leadership is all about developing an internal set of characteristics to help you to navigate your journey as a leader, and to enjoy the experience way more than you do if you employ last century's strategies and teachings.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, where we start unpacking this VUCA Shift by talking about the important area of personal leadership. I'll see you then.
Do you fail to prepare for the future or do you recognise the need for change, take charge of your own change initiatives, and then remove the barriers to that change?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around all things emotional intelligence by having a conversation around creating your own change, rather than waiting for others to do it for you.
We all know that 2020 has been an environment of change on a daily basis, and it's certainly been a major change in what our normal is right now. Over the last few weeks, we've talked about having more personal agility, being more intentional, and being able to remove those resistance roadblocks that are creating anxiety around all the change that's happening in our life right now.
However, this is not just a conversation for COVID-19, this is a conversation we need to have about the rest of our life. Our future. I work with people every day who resist change overtly and covertly. And they say things like, "Well, this is the way we've always done it around here." And the fear of change is stopping them from bringing out their personal best.
Now, we've talked about the meaning that we put on change and our mindset around it and how that can either be empowering and help us to navigate change or disempowering and keep us in the status quo, fearful of being able to move forward.
And right now, I want to make sure that I'm doing what I can to keep the conversation going around being able to create the change in your own life, rather than letting it happen around you. Perhaps it's time to challenge the status quo, to stand in opposition to that fear of change, and to become a champion of change in our own life and the intrinsic effect that that will have on the lives around us.
So, what I want to do is I want to give you some tips that I've found have helped me and the people that I work with to navigate change, to take control of our own situation, and create the changes that we want to see in our world.
Number one is to challenge that status quo and rather than thinking, "Well, that's the way it's always been done.", have a mindset that says, "Just because it's always the way it's been done, is it the only way that we can do it? Is there a different way that will produce different results?"
So, the first thing that we need to do is open our mind to change. We've worked over the last few weeks about being able to make a change, something that we embrace, rather than fear, something that we look forward to, rather than resist. So, the first thing we need to do is challenge our own status quo.
Number two is to identify where and how we could do things differently. Now that we've got our brain in a state to think logically, now that we've done an audit on our thoughts, our beliefs, what we feel about change, what our status quo is, now we are in a position because of our open mind to look at things differently and go, "Hey, I could do this this way. I could do this differently."
So, it's not about using "better", it's not about using the word "should". We're not being judgmental here. We're not saying what we've been doing is wrong. What we're doing is identifying things that could do with a bit of a change. Right now, here in Australia, we've just gone into spring. So, there's an opportunity for us to do a spring clean on the way that we're getting things done. So, number two is to write out a list to identify things that could possibly do with the change.
Number three is to develop a plan for change, rather than just seat of the pants, "Let's just wing this and see if we can get a result here." Now that we've got a list of what needs to change or what we could change, the next step is to actually create a plan for change. So, it's something that we do intentionally, rather than something that just happens.
So, in each initiative that you come up with, an area of your life, your business, whatever it is for you, that you could change, write out a plan. Write out a plan that says what needs changing, when it needs changing, by how it needs changing, who needs to be involved, how are we going to measure the change, et cetera, and have a written plan.
We then transfer into whatever it is that keeps us on track, whether it be, for me, my calendar. I use a program called Asana. I've got my team as accountability partners and put it into that system so that you actually go from it being something that you want to do to something that gets done. So, number three is to develop your change plan.
Number four is to make sure that your change is covered in terms of the impact that it has on other people. When there's other people involved in the change, we need to make sure that we identify how they may need to change as well, or how what we're doing will affect what they're doing.
So, it's imperative to get those people involved in that change process, rather than what I've done many times over the years with my team is I just decided that was going to be a change. And then I just started changing and people are thinking, "What's going on here? This is different to the way we were doing it before." And then they wouldn't be able to support what it is that I was changing. So, number four is to make sure that you consider who else is involved in the change.
And number five is to start making the change. Everything that we do in life starts with the first step. So, now, over the last few weeks, we've learned how to be more empathetic when we're working with others. We've learned how to communicate differently. We've learned how to handle conflict. We've learned how to be more adaptable and have more agility. We've learned how to be more intentional in what it is that we're doing.
So, now we're ready to make some change that we might have been putting off in our life. There's been many times where I've been working with people who were resisting change simply because they didn't know what was the first step.
So, now that we have a plan, we can break that plan down and take the first step. And my experience is that every time we take a step, it gets a little bit more clearer. The clarity comes. We know what we're doing. And that fear and that anxiety and the things that were holding us back before dissipate because we see the benefit of the change.
So, number five is now that we've got all the planning in place and we've got the mindset where it needs to be is do something today to move towards that change.
So, change is something to be embraced. It's not something to be feared. And now that we know that, we can be the master of our own change. Sometimes people get up and they just go to work. They just do what they did yesterday, and they wait for things to change. And I know I've been in that position in certain parts of my life.
But what I'm encouraging you to do is to become a catalyst of change. And catalysing change is one of the 26 competencies that I work with in social and emotional intelligence. And it's definitely one that's getting a lot of work right now. So, let me encourage you to be the change that you want to see in the world, to have a plan, to make those changes, to put aside all your fears and your doubts as to whether or not you can do it, and get some support, get some help.
If you need to work with someone like me, if you need to do some sort of an online course that will help you to develop those skills, if you need to get other people involved, then do that and make the changes that you need to make right now. We're going to make changes anyway. Why not make them the ones that we want to make?
Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure that you subscribe, that you go to my website grantherbert.com, you join the conversation, that you leave me some comments, that you share this on your social media. And join me again next week, when we continue the conversation around all things emotional intelligence, positive psychology, neuroscience, VUCA leadership, where we look at some key areas of personal leadership that will help us to actually be able to make the change that you're deciding to make today. I'll see you then.
Do you think and act on purpose or do you tend to run by the seat of your pants? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to continue our conversation around self-management, the second quadrant of emotional intelligence, by talking about the competency of intentionality.
Some people take control and make things happen where others just sort of look back and go, "Wow, what happened?" Working in the daily grind where the same old thing happens every day and it's just in a bit of a rut. And you just get up and just run the same patterns and do the same thing and then, at the end of the day, not quite sure what you really got done.
Continually reacting to other people pushing buttons for you, or for crisis situations, being totally out of balance in the things that you focus on. And the end result is comparison and regret and feeling guilty about the lack of effort that you've put in, or the lack of forward movement that you've got on your goals.
Comparing yourself with others is one of the biggest dream stealers. And we have so many opportunities out there to see on social media, on television, wherever it is, others who are showing you what they're doing. So, therefore, because we're not acting on purpose, we've focused on what others are achieving and we regret not being there ourselves.
But when we work on our intentionality, we get different results. We go from a daily grind to a daily flow where things happen as they're supposed to happen, where we're operating, not from the seat of our pants, but on the front foot.
That's a cricket analogy whereby when a bowler bowls a ball, particularly a spin bowler, we're not quite sure what's going to happen when it hits the pitch. So, if the batsman takes a step forward and gets on the front foot, ready to take the ball, it takes out that ambiguity because he meets the ball where it pitches and that's what we can do as well when we set intention.
And instead of being out of balance, we build our own perfect balance where we're prioritising things that are most important to us, and we feel proud, and we feel fulfilled by whatever it is that we've achieved in our day, in our week, in our month, whatever it is.
And to have these results, we need to develop the competency of intentionality. Intentionality is thinking and acting on purpose. Taking control of your life, taking control of your day, and making sure that you decide where it is that you put your energy. So, therefore, you are in control of your destiny. So, let me take you through five key ideas that will help you to be able to lay this platform that you need to be more intentional.
Number one is to know your purpose. When we have that bigger picture idea of what we're on the planet for, when we know what our purpose is, we're able then to make sure that whatever we give our time, our energy, our bandwidth to is actually related to and linked to that purpose. When we lack purpose, we can just do anything. We can just go about our day, seat of the pants mentality, and just look busy.
But when we ask ourselves the question, "For what purpose?", we then give that particular activity that we may or may not want to do a priority. If it's working towards the purpose, then, "Hey, it's something that I need to do." "If it's something that's going to detract from my purpose, then it's something I need to discard." "If there are things that I can decide between, the one that's the highest priority will be the one that moves me in my purpose."
The second one are our horizons of focus. A lot of times when we get trapped in this rut, this day to day, this grind, it's because we are just looking at what's in front of us. However, when we have a purpose, we can then look at that purpose and, indeed, our life from a higher perspective.
It's like taking a satellite view of the earth. So, we're looking down on the entire situation and seeing the whole picture, not just this thing that's come across my desk or across my day that I need to decide whether or not it's urgent based on normally other people's requests.
So, the horizons of focus that we need to look at are up there in the atmosphere, then down, just as we're going up through the clouds and the runway, what's right in front of us that needs to be looked at now. How are we going to get this journey started?
So, start by having a big picture view. What is it that your overall purpose is achieving? What is it that you want to get done this year, this quarter?
So, have a look at it from a macro-level and then bring it back to what I need to do this week, this month, then bring it back and have a look at, well, what do I need to do this week, today, right now so that when I put those steps together, it will achieve that weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly goal, whatever it is. So, make sure that we understand the horizons of focus.
Number three is plan your journey. There's been many times, and I think I talked about this one of the other weeks, there's many times where I just would jump in the car with the family. We say, "Let's go somewhere." And we would not, and when I say "we", I meant me, we would not book a hotel or those sorts of things. We just run by the seat of our pants because that was exciting and the variety was great.
And there've been occasions where we've had to drive a lot further before we could get into a hotel using that analogy or that methodology. And it's the same with our life, our week, our day, we need to make sure that it's planned. We need to make sure that we know where we're going, we know how we're going to get there, and we know what the milestones are along the way.
If you're like me and planning is not a natural thing, it's something that you really need to get good at. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. You've heard it before. And I used to think that was some cliche thing that people used to say, and let me tell you, I now know that they were so right.
Because when we've got things planned, things happen because we want them to, not because they just turn up. We're expecting them. They're part of the journey. The other thing about planning the journey and having those milestones is we can measure where we've been. We can measure how far we've come. So, number three, plan your journey.
Number four is take action. Let the green light go. It doesn't matter if everything's not perfect. Every journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. So, just get started. Do something today towards that goal. Do something that's going to take you one step closer from where you are now to where you want to go.
A lot of times we want to get it a hundred percent ready. We want to make sure everything's right, that everything's perfect, and it's never going to be that way. So, the fourth big idea, when we want to make sure that we achieve things through intentionality is hit the start button, take action.
And number five is to reflect to refocus. So, on the journey, we need to make sure whether it's a day, a week, or whatever, that we have milestones where we stop and go, "How far have we got?" It's like on the car journey where we stop, we need to fill the car back up. We need to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, whatever it is.
We need to make sure that we've got these stops planned in along the journey. And what we do with that is we reflect on where we've been. And when we do this, we do it in a special way. We do it with forward-focused reflection, not looking back and then beating ourselves up with what we haven't got done.
And to help me remember this, I like to think of driving a car. I like to think of the windscreen, that big piece of glass in front of us, that also has this little rear-vision mirror that's there so that we can have a look every now and then and see what's happening behind. And when we reflect, we need to do it in the same proportion. We need to make sure that most of our focus is still on where we're going, just checking in and doing two things.
One, to have a look and identify what we got right. What was a win? What worked? And then number two is to be able to recognise what still needs doing, what we didn't quite get the result with that we wanted. So, we then are able to refocus our energy and our efforts on the things moving forward. So, number five is to make sure that we reflect and refocus.
So, there's five big ideas, key principles that we need to employ so that we can get more done, so that we can be more intentional. So, what I want you to do at the end of this episode is just pause for a moment and ask yourself that first question, "For what purpose? What is it that you are on the planet for? What is it that you are wanting to achieve?"
And get some clarity around that so that you can then operate your day days with purpose and making sure that you set the right intention of where you put your time, your energy, your finances, whatever it is that you need to be able to be the best steward of.
Running by the seat your pants is not as romantic as it sounds. It creates a lot of disharmony and a lack of results. Setting intention, working on your intentionality, that critical competency of self-management in the spectrum of emotional intelligence, is going to allow you to get more done in a day than most people get done in a week. So, a lot of us right now are in a situation where things have changed, where this COVID-19 has totally changed the way we operate.
And I know myself that there were times when I was just starting to go through the motions, doing the same old stuff every single day, and I was getting into one of those ruts that I talked about before. Intentionality will bring us out of that rut, and I just want to encourage you that if you're feeling like you're getting nowhere, that you're just like a hamster on a wheel, then take what I've taught you today, set that intention, and enjoy the results moving forward.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, that you share this with your friends, and join me again next week where we continue this conversation around the self-management competencies of emotional intelligence by empowering you to be the creator of change in your life. I'll see you then.
Do you always expect the worst during setbacks, see them as insurmountable and out of your depth, or do you see them as temporary and have the confidence to be able to navigate your way through them?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around emotional intelligence self-management strategies by talking about the very important topic right now of realistic optimism.
I've quite often been referred to as the eternal optimist, where I don't see the challenging things, and that's not always healthy either. What I do though is by developing this competency is I take control of my self-talk, and I look for the things that I can change, and I reduce that anxiety and stress that can lead to some debilitating emotions in this time right now. What we need to do is to bring some realism into that optimism.
So, it's not about just the power of positive thinking alone, it's using our logical brain, now that we know how to tap into the logical brain, without that emotional spiral, to look at things in a way that puts them in perspective, that looks at what we do know, rather than vent what we don't.
Realistic optimism is all about expecting success, seeing those setbacks as just temporary, and knowing and having the confidence in yourself and what's happening around you that you're going to be able to navigate through this current situation, and there is a future that's bigger, better, and brighter. To reach that future and enjoy it, we need to be able to employ strategies that will help us to see the future and not be stuck in the past or the present situation.
When we get this wrong, we can see bad events as lasting forever. We see luck as the only way that we're going to be able to get through things, rather than your own ability. It can leave us feeling helpless and listless a lot of the time during our day, and it can lead to some very major mental health issues like depression.
But when we learn how to do this differently, we have belief in our own ability, that we're able to make that change, and that comes from a deep sense of our personal power.
You apply that same belief to everything you do, not just a single task. You operate from a mindset of success, rather than fear, and you have a healthy self-talk. I heard it once said that an optimist is a man who gets treed by a lion, but enjoys the scenery while he's up there.
And if we look at that and how we can put that into our everyday life right now, some of us do feel like we've been forced up a tree. We're stuck. The view that we see when we're there is totally up to you and it's up to me.
So, what I want to do right now is I want to give you some tips that you can implement right now so that you can become more realistic in your outlook on life. You can bring in that optimism to empower you to be who you need to be right now and to move into your new future. So, let's get started.
Number one is you tune into your self-talk about the adversity in your life right now. What is it that you're saying to yourself? What is your inner dialogue reminding you of? What's holding you back? So, step number one is to tune in and listen actively to what beliefs are coming out, what you think about yourself, what your self-talk is telling you and setting you up for either success or holding you back.
Number two is to examine your beliefs you have about adversity. What does it mean to you? Is it something that you see as being a whole of life thing or is it situational? Our beliefs determine our thoughts and therefore our behaviour.
So, by doing this audit of your beliefs around adversity, around setbacks, around the things that are going on in your life right now, it's going to give you the information that you need to channel into your logical brain and remove those things that are not allowing you to move forward and flip them to things that will.
Number three is to take notice of the feelings that you feel around those beliefs. So, how does it make you feel that you think that certain way about adversity? Does it make you feel fear? Does it make you feel trapped? Does it make you feel disempowered? Or are your beliefs making you feel empowered, making you feel positive in your outlook so that you can then move forward?
Sometimes, we can even feel guilty about having those beliefs. And we can beat up on ourself, and that creates a spiral down emotionally. It limits our personal power. And then we make even more decisions, based with our emotional brain, based around that, "I am a less than, rather than I'm capable." And the result is even worse. So, tune into your self-talk, examine your beliefs, and then examine the way that you feel about those beliefs.
Number four is to dispute those negative beliefs. Instead of taking them on because they feel good and they line up with how you feel about yourself, dispute them. Look for evidence from your logical brain that they are not true. They're something that you've believed, something that you've made up, and they are not actually what's really happening right now. So, step four, let's take action to get rid of those beliefs, to reject them, dispute them, and leave them behind.
Now that we've been through these four steps, we can get to number five, 'cause we're in a position where we feel confident in ourself. We've got ourself in an emotional state and a state where we are thinking logically and looking at things realistically. And we can look now for evidence to dispute those beliefs. We can look at ourself and go, "You know what? I'm not a failure. I am not whatever those beliefs were. This is what I am."
So, this whole five step process or the four steps leading to the five is to get ourselves in a position where we're thinking realistically, where we're thinking with our logical brain, where we're looking at ourself in a positive light with our big voice, not that mini-me that wants to hold us back.
So, let me introduce you to a strategy, a method that you can use so that you can operate out of a position of realistic optimism. And it's really simple for me to remember because it is A, B, C, D, E. Let's have a look at it.
The A stands for adversity, the B stands for belief, the C for consequences, the D for disputation, and the E is for energisation. Let's pull them apart and put them into context with an actual live scenario.
So, let's say you were having a dinner party and you invited some friends. And this friend came along and the adversity was your friend came, but they sat there and they didn't eat any of the food. So, that's the adversity. Now, that can trigger a lot of thoughts. And depending on what you move into the belief zone with, will determine what you do with that.
So, the belief could be, she didn't like the food. I'm a lousy cook. I don't even know why I try to make friends. I don't think there's any need at all for me to try and pursue her as a friend in the future because I'm not a good friend. So, that belief can become very powerful based out of that adversity, because that's what you made it mean and it can then move into the consequences.
So, the consequences in this scenario could be I feel really bad and awful about myself for thinking that way. I feel embarrassed that I've cooked such terrible food. And I actually avoid spending any time with that person for the whole night because of the way that I feel.
So, the consequence of the belief is what we really want to tap into because then we can decide whether or not we want that to be a consequence in our life. To be in control and to be able to move forward, there needs to be enough pain around what's happening or enough pleasure for us to move through. And we've talked about how the brain works and the pleasure circuits and dopamine, et cetera, works in our brain in previous weeks. So, the third part of the process, the C is to look at the consequences.
So, we've had A, B, C. We've had the adversity, the belief, and the consequence. So, now what we can do is we can move into the D, which is the disputation. This is where we look for evidence that what we believe is not true. So, we could look at the fact that there was several people at the dinner party and everybody else ate the food. So, the food wasn't awful. She could be on a diet. She could be only able to eat certain things. She might've have been feeling very well.
So, we're looking for evidence that's contrary to the belief that we have. What we do most of the time was we look for evidence of what we believe so that we can submit those beliefs because those beliefs are what are keeping us safe. Those beliefs are all about where we feel about ourself in that given moment, in that time of our life.
So, what we're going to do here is dispute those negatives and we're going to replace them with real evidence. And to do that, we obviously need to work in the logical brain. And the E stands for energisation. So, what the energisation is is by disputing those beliefs and having a different belief, it energises us. It becomes an empowering feeling.
And in that energisation in this scenario, what it would energise us to do is to invest some more time with that person, to talk to that person, to get around that person, and enjoy their company, and to remove that feeling of fear, anxiety, whatever it was that you were going through, and enjoy the rest of your night, and enjoy the company of everyone else that's there as well.
So, what we believe affects our energy. So, by disputing those negative beliefs, putting in the real beliefs, it changes how we come across energetically. We're more engaged, we're more enthusiastic, and we feel more empowered.
So, that is a five step process, A, B, C, D, E. Easy to remember. Adversity, belief, consequence that moves us into disputation and energisation. With realistic optimism, we're able to navigate, whether it be in a period right now in this COVID-19 disruption or in any time in our life, we're able to navigate more effectively what it is that we're going through, rather than be more present.
We're able to feel more positive emotions because we're looking at life with reality, rather than the made up stories that our negative self-talk and our negative self-worth conjures up.
Realistic optimism is one of the 10 competencies of self-management in the four quadrants of social and emotional intelligence. So, it starts with self-awareness, and then we move into these competencies of self-management.
And if you'd like some help to get involved in your own development of your emotional intelligence, let me know, drop a comment, go to my website, wherever you need to connect with me, and ask some questions. I'd love to help you on your journey.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this journey through self-management by learning to be more intentional. I'll see you then.
Do you readily and willingly adapt to the changes around you or do you resist change and try to hold on to the status quo? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to start to move into the second quadrant of emotional intelligence and talk about skills around self-management.
Change is inevitable and the pace of change is unprecedented right now. You either run with it or you let it overwhelm you. The difference between these two comes in developing the competency of personal agility. There are several things that will actually hold you back from being able to change without all the stress and all the conflict.
The first one is being fearful of change, wanting things to stay the way they are. If we operated that way, you would still have typewriters, rather than be able to talk to a computer and it types it out for us, or resisting change and being stubborn and saying, "No, that's not what I want to do."
Being inflexible, which is like my body in the morning when I first wake up. Because it's been still all night and hasn't done any movement, it can be a little bit seized up. And that's what happens to us when we resist change, when our level of personal agility is low.
And the end result is that we stagnate, and it's like a pond of water that's not moving: green algae grows on the top. It's stagnant. We can't drink it. We can't swim in it. We can't use it at all. It stops us from going forward. But when you learn to develop your personal agility, instead of having these challenges, you can have better results.
You can learn to embrace change and see that the changes are actually good, see that the changes are part of your process of moving forward. They're not actually holding you back. You can become an initiator of change. So, instead of the change happening to you, you create the change.
And you learn to become adaptable, like the chameleon who camouflages itself and blends in with the environment that it's in so that it stays safe. We can do the same thing when we learn to adapt to the change. And the end result is that we have flow and we grow and we move forward. So, let me outlay five key principles, big ideas that we need to take hold of before we can develop the competency of personal agility.
Number one is change is inevitable. It's like the larvae that spins its cocoon and then expects to stay there forever. As we know, what happens is from that cocoon comes a beautiful butterfly, and it's like that in our life as well. We're not able to just stay wrapped up in the cocoon. Change is going to happen. It's inevitable. So, when we understand that, we can anticipate change and it doesn't become such a big problem and a big shock to us.
Number two is we have to learn to become uncomfortable. When the motor car was first developed and they wanted to start the car, they had to get this big handle called a crank handle and put it in the front of the car and turn it round and round and round until the magneto created enough spark and the engine fired and then it took over by itself. And the momentum was created by the weight of the flywheel.
Unfortunately though, a lot of times when we did that, and when I say we, by the way, I'm not that old, but when they did that, what happened was that there was some kickback and sometimes that handle came off and there were knuckles that got scraped. Sometimes it really hurt the shoulder of the person that was trying to crank it.
So, by getting uncomfortable and understanding that that's not how you wanted to continue, that's the only way that they came up with the idea of the electric starter motor. Now, when I jump into my car, I don't even have a key. I just need to push a button, and that wouldn't have happened if people didn't learn to get uncomfortable with the status quo.
Number three is to focus on your "why". Asking yourself, "Why is this change a good thing?", rather than looking for reasons not to do it. Find how that change is going to move you closer to one of your goals, one of your dreams, one of your desires, the "why", the overarching picture that you have in your mind every single day as to why you get up out of bed and do what it is that you do.
Number four is to look at and navigate change incrementally. We have this door at home where the kids, every year, stood up against the door with their back to the door and on their birthday, we would put a mark, an increment on the door as to how tall they were getting.
The point I'm trying to make here is they didn't get to be the height that they are now overnight. They weren't born that way. They were a certain size. And then, each year, they grew. Some years, it was a big incremental change. Other years, not so much. When we look at change in the same way, it makes it easier to navigate, but breaking it down into bite-sized chunks.
And the overall thing that we want to do then is know, "What do I need to do next? What do I need to do today? What's the first small step that I can take to make that change?"
And number five, and one of the most important, is to seek support. Make sure that whenever change is happening, you've got a support team. You've got people you can talk to. You've got people that are going through similar things to you. You've got people that can offer you practical support in being able to navigate the change.
So, there's five key principles, big ideas, concepts that we need to understand before we can navigate change without the overwhelm. So, if you're feeling a little bit out of kilter with all the changes that are going on around us right now, it might be time for you to just step back, have an honest look, and see where you are in this competency of personal agility.
Emotional intelligence starts with awareness and then empowers you to be able to manage your responses to what's going on around you. When we can control the disruptive thoughts and feelings, we're able to change without it being a major challenge because we're looking at it logically and we're going through those principles that I gave you before.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. If you need some help in developing your emotional intelligence, make sure you get in touch. And next week, we're going to continue the conversation around self-management competencies by looking at maintaining realistic optimism. I'll see you then.
Do you do your best to deliver on your promises and commitments, maintaining high standards of personal integrity, or do you find it hard to establish long standing, trusting relationships?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation by unpacking the elements you need for “Building a Bond of Trust”.
Everywhere you look at the moment there are so many examples of mistrust and scepticism. Whether it’s leaders in government, health organisations, the media, or even with people you have never even met but are interacting with on social media, a lack of trust in them or the information they are communicating is causing more and more conflict.
When people have developed a reputation for lacking integrity, or undermine others for their own personal gain, it is little wonder you find it hard to believe anything they say. Making promises they never intend to keep just to get what they want, behaving erratically and treating their fellow man poorly, and being unable to establish open and candid conversations, erodes away the trust that we all need to feel safe, cared for and valued.
But then there are the people in your life who behave in accordance with their beliefs, values, and commitments. They genuinely care about others and treat people fairly, consistently and with respect. That’s the kind of people we want to run the world, right?
Well, let me encourage you, and myself, to be the personification of that famous quote that says, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. You and I may not have any chance of controlling the behaviour of those other leaders, but we do have an opportunity to influence our own little part of the world.
It takes a long time to build trust, and only an instant to destroy it, so let me unpack a few tips for you that will help you build and maintain a lasting bond of trust with those around you. Are you ready to take on the challenge?
Over the last few weeks, we have already spoken about several things that every trusted leader demonstrates. Empathy, active listening, effective communication and great conflict management skills. Let me add a few more to the list.
Be real and talk straight, rather than skirting around the subject and appearing to be hiding something.
Make it easier to keep your word by avoiding to overpromise because you want people to approve of you.
Admit when you have made a mistake because nobody expects you to be perfect, they just expect honesty.
Share your true feelings and thoughts about a situation, allowing room for others to disagree or share a different view.
Show others you have trust in them. A bond of trust is a 2 way street. People need to know that you have their back before they will unconditionally have yours.
Learn about who people really are, not just what they do, and never betray a confidence by disclosing what they tell you inappropriately.
Trusting others, and in turn being trusted by them, is all we need to build a bond of trust. In today’s uncertain world of constant change, online scrutiny and the many examples of people we find it hard to trust, you can be a breath of fresh air to the people in your world.
To demonstrate these trust makers, and avoid the trust breakers, you need to continue to build your emotional intelligence. As I have said many times before, I may be a subject matter expert, but I am a daily work in progress just like you. It’s never about being perfect. It’s more about making incremental changes, one day at a time.
If you would like to know more about how to do this, get in touch and ask me to help. I would love to be a part of your journey.
Well, that’s it from me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, share this with your friends, and join me again next week when we will continue the conversation by learning how to navigate change by being more agile. I’ll see you then.
Are you uncomfortable with and tend to avoid conflict, or can you spot potential conflicts, bring disagreements out in the open, and then deescalate them?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence, around Effective Communication and Empathy by talking to you about what to do when it all goes wrong and we get into conflict.
Conflict is inevitable and Conflict Management is all about resolving disagreements. It's about identifying that we've had some miscommunication, that we've had a misunderstanding, and it's about using all the skills that we talked about in communicating and effectively, actively listening to go, "Hang on a sec, let's get back on track."
I know in my own life and in many of the people who I work with, in their lives, this is a skill that we haven't at all yet mastered. And when we're having difficulties in this area, we tend to fall into conflict all the time.
Now, to just step back a little bit, firstly, we've got to make sure, before we get into management of conflict, that we understand where it comes from. And a lot of times, conflict will come when we fail to suspend our judgment, when we fail to actively listen and therefore, we get misunderstandings.
When we tend to see the other person as our opponent, we fail to listen to their point of view and we're only interested in being right. I know this was a major challenge for me and it's something that I still have to work on every single day. We might lack consideration or tact and fail to see it from the other person's point of view.
And when we're only focusing on our point of view, it's really challenging to find common ground. When we encourage open debate and discussion and we draw out everyone's opinion in a logical way, as a fact-finding exercise, not looking for things to rebut against, then we're able to set up an environment of understanding where we can have those win-win solutions.
Effective Conflict Management is something that we will all get the benefit from at some point in our lives. There are totally different styles of Conflict Management. Some people are conflict avoiders at all costs. "Keep it away from me. I don't feel empowered, so I don't want to play."
Some people can be aggressive and they're really good at conflict, so they think, because they're practicing it all the time. Some people are compromises, where they just look for a win-win all the time. They give a little bit and they lose a little bit and they try and find the middle ground. This is not always a good thing because others might manipulate the situation.
So, whatever conflict style you are currently using, what I want to do is teach you some key tips, some steps that you can take in any conflict situation to deescalate and get back on an even ground where we can continue with positive communication.
Number one is to operate from your logical brain. As we've talked about, Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be aware of the emotion that you're going through in the moment, and then to use that information to manage your response.
So, when we operate from our logical brain, by asking "what" questions and "how" questions, rather than "why" questions, we're able to give ourselves a better opportunity to think, pause, and respond to what we're hearing, and to practice active listening, and to go through a logical process of gathering information without the need to give it a meaning or to judge it and therefore, be able to have healthy dialogue and manage and resolve the conflict.
Number two is to focus on the issue, not the person. Now, that's something that I was taught many, many years ago, and I never understood it until I understood the neuroscience behind Emotional Intelligence. Because when someone says, "Focus on the issue, don't focus on the person," I'm thinking, "It's the person that's creating the conflict. It's the person that's in front of me right now. It's the person that's on the other end of the keyboard in the social media conversation," or whatever it is.
So, by utilising tip one, which is staying in the logical brain, we're then able to focus on the outcome, focus on what it is that's being said, focus in a data-driven, logical information way that allows us to look at the issue and not make it personal between you and the other person or people.
And number three, and this is one that I have to use a lot, is to decide to be the most emotionally intelligent person in the interaction, to decide that no matter what, you're going to behave in a way that will give you the best opportunity to have a peaceful outcome.
Relationships are important and whether it's someone that you've just met on the keyboard, on social media, or someone that's close and near and dear to you, I think we can all benefit a lot more by having less conflict. So, if I make a decision that I'm going to be emotionally intelligent to the best of my ability and control only my behaviour, 'cause that's really all I can control, then the conflicts will deescalate quickly because you can only have conflict when two people want to play.
I remember a lot of times driving in traffic where someone might cut me off. And in the old days, before I knew how to do these things, I would give them the California salute, or shout something at them, or they would know by the expression on my face that I wasn't happy. And I was ready for a fight, but doing things differently, like when they cut me off going, "Sorry," even though it wasn't my fault, it tends to take the sting out of the conflict. There's no argument if you're not involved in it.
So, what I'm not saying here is not to let people walk all over you. What I'm saying is walk away when it's not your fight. What I'm saying is behave in a way that you would like others to behave to you. And what I've found is that communication gets the response from the way it's been given.
So, the best thing that you and I can do to deescalate a conflict and get to a position where we can get back on track with our communication. And Effective Communication is to decide to be in control of our emotions, of our self-talk, of what actually comes out of our mouth, whatever we type on the keyboard, and all these skills are a part of Emotional Intelligence.
Conflict happens when there is poor communication, when there's a lack of mutual understanding, where there's no give and take, where there's a failure to suspend judgment, where there's a need to be right.
And Conflict Management is a culmination of those skills in Emotional Intelligence that we've talked about: Personal Power, being okay in your own skin, and being okay with being who you are, Emotional Self-Control, being able to understand the emotions and the meanings that you're putting on things, and being able to take your response down a different direction, rather than a reaction.
It's about having that Effective Communication, things like active listening, listening for what's not being said, and all the things we've talked about over this last six weeks or so. When I work with people in developing Conflict Management skills, I teach a five-step process for effectively negotiating and resolving any conflict. If you're interested in knowing more about that, then drop me a line, put in a comment, and I'd love to help you out with that.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button and join me again next week, when we continue our conversation around the competencies of Social and Emotional Intelligence that are going to help us to navigate beyond COVID-19 and just enjoy whoever we need to be in every area of our life. I'll see you then.
Do you fail to listen, interrupt, or always find fault in what others say, or do you welcome mutual understanding by listening intently and allowing the sharing of information?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Empathy and Emotional Intelligence by talking about the art of active listening.
One of the most powerful skills that we can all have is genuine listening. It's the key to effective communication. And for healthy relationships, it's important to hear everything that's being said and to be a tuned into what's not being said so that we get the full picture and we're able to interact and have mutually beneficial communication. This is one of the most important ingredients in Empathy.
Well, we're still learning to do this well. We might be someone who interrupts all the time, where we've got our own agenda and we're pushing that, and we're not really all that interested in fully listening to what the other person's saying. We might be giving the opinion that we are listening with our ears, but our body language and our response and reaction says that we aren't really interested.
When we get this skill to where it's going to help us and give us that triple win we talked about last week, a win for us, a win for them, and a win for the greater good, we are not only interested in what we have to say and what our opinion is, but we're open to what the other person or people have to say. And we filter that information in our logical brain to make sure that we have the entire picture to avoid misunderstanding and to avoid conflict.
When we do this, we're able to have conversations that are effective, that are mutually beneficial, and that allow us to be involved with Compassionate Empathy; to not just understand, but to be a part of the solution as well.
So, let's talk about some of the things that we are listening for. As we've already said, we're listening to what's being said, we're also listening to what's not being said. We're listening to what's not congruent, what doesn't seem to add up. A lot of times, I'll be having conversations or I'll be communicating and what I'm saying here isn't lining up to what I said here, and that creates confusion.
We listen for what's needed, what's missing, and we listen to what their goals are, what they want to achieve. By actively listening, we can also be attuned to what their strengths are so that we know where we can add value and where they're doing okay.
So, let me give you three key tips that you can use to help you to be a more active listener and therefore, have more effective communication.
Number one, set aside your own agenda. When we have our own agenda out front, we've got all this noise and all this clamor going on in our mind. So, even though we are doing our best to listen, we're not hearing. We're filtering it through our own agenda. So, the best thing that we can do is to be totally focused on them, set aside our own agenda, and listen fully and be fully present.
Number two is to avoid jumping in. A lot of times when I was learning to be a better communicator, someone would be talking and they could tell that all I was doing was waiting for them to take a breath so that I could jump in. I'd be trying to jump in and go, "Yeah, okay." And every time they said a point, I'd have something to counter it with or something to add.
So, when we avoid jumping in and leave the conversation open and collect the information in a logical way, not collecting it in a way that's comparing it to what our beliefs are, we're able to get the full picture.
And number three is to reflect back what you heard. Remember last week, we talked about the communication process, being someone who is a sender, encoding their message, and sending it to a receiver. The receiver receives that information through the noise and then they decode what they thought they were communicated. And that's where the confusion can come in.
What they then do is they encode their reaction or their response and they send it back through the noise to the original sender who is now the receiver, who decodes what they think they heard. The challenge with all that is we can make assumptions. We can think that we heard this and therefore make a belief around that, give that a meaning when in fact it may not be what was said at all.
So, by reflecting back what we think we heard, we were able to get clarification and or confirmation so that we can then move forward effectively; simple phrases like, "So, what I heard you say was...," and then repeating what you thought they said. Now, this can be done, whether it's verbally or whether it's written text.
And that gives the person that you're communicating with the opportunity to go, "Yes, that's exactly what I said," or give clarity and either go deeper to give further understanding or go, "No, that's not what I meant at all. This is what I meant."
So, when we use these three tips, when we actively listen and we do it without assumption, we do it without jumping in, and we reflect to get clarity and confirmation, we take out all the misunderstanding and all the conflict. Active listening is a crucial component of Empathy, and one of the competencies that we teach in the work that we do in Social and Emotional Intelligence.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure that you hit the subscribe button so that you can be with me again next week when we talk about Conflict Management.
It doesn't always go right. We don't always get it right. So therefore, I'm going to teach you a strategy and a procedure to be able to effectively navigate conflict, nip it in the bud, and go back to effective communication. I'll see you then.
Do you fail to listen, interrupt, and find fault with what others say, or do you listen well, seek mutual understanding, and welcome differing opinions? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation on empathy by talking about another key ingredient of Social Intelligence, Effective Communication.
As we talked about last week, demonstrating Cognitive, Emotional and Compassionate Empathy can really help us as we continue to navigate the effects of this pandemic on our lives. Going into battle, so to speak, dominating conversations with our own bias and opinions creates an environment where someone has to win and someone has to lose. It's not healthy and definitely not what we need right now.
In the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, we hear the prison captain justify the beating that he gave Paul Newman, who played the prisoner Luke, by saying to all the other prisoners, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So, you get what we had here last week. Which is what he wants."
It's like he's saying that when people speak up for themselves or express their views and concerns, they want to be beaten up and put back in their place. I would suggest a different way of looking at it. Perhaps I just want to be heard or release the pent up emotions and stress that they're experiencing. They might be going through some really challenging stuff in their life in that moment and really need some help.
Whatever the situation, I'm fairly confident that they're not looking for a beating. When we have empathy, we seek first to understand before being understood. So, let's take a look at what effective communication is and how we can use it to be more compassionate and understanding.
Famous playwright George Bernard Shaw said it so well. "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." For many years, I saw communication as speaking and being heard. If I said something to you and you heard me, I had communicated. I was under the illusion that Shaw was talking about.
Communication is a process with many moving parts. And if we leave any of the parts out, we have ineffective communication. We have senders who encode what they send based on their own beliefs and biases. We then have a receiver who decodes what they heard based on their beliefs and biases.
In the middle of all that, we have a lot of noise from media, family, friends, our own inner dialogue. Sometimes the message comes through distorted and that's where the misunderstandings originate from. This causes conflict. So, let's take a look at three things that we can all do to improve our communication.
Number one is to listen more than we speak. When we are seeking to understand, it's far better to listen than to tell the other person what we think. The more that we learn this crucial skill of listening, the better we will be attuned to what is not being said. We talked about that last week. So, listen more than we speak.
Number two is to keep focus in the logical brain. When we are involved in any type of communication, if we allow the emotion of what's being said to trigger our thoughts and our behaviours based on our previous experiences, and we've talked about that over the previous weeks, then we're going to have a reaction to what's being said.
But, when we get it up into the prefrontal cortex, into the executive command center of the brain, we can then listen and use our Cognitive Empathy to find out what's actually being said. And then we can process that in a logical way and respond.
And number three is to ask more questions than we make statements. Questions are so powerful to gain understanding, whereas statements can put up barriers and put up roadblocks. So, I encourage you, as I encourage myself, to become really good and proficient at asking more questions.
Effective Communication is a key ingredient of Social and Emotional Intelligence and something that we all might consider doing a little differently, if we want to restore unity of purpose across the world and beat this pandemic and take back control of our lives. By the way, even though I'm going live each week to support you, my listeners, the topics that I'm choosing are the ones that I need to work on in my own life right now.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue our conversation by learning the powerful art of active listening. I'll see you then.
Can you see things from other people's perspective or do you tend to act without considering how others might feel? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence during this time of COVID-19 by having a conversation around a crucial competency called empathy.
Right now, I'm seeing many examples of a lack of empathy, whether it be on social media, whether I'm listening to the news, or if I'm downtown at the local shopping center. Whether it's stereotyping people, whether it's not being tolerant of differing views, or whether it's coming across just being uncaring with a total lack of concern for others and being trapped in our own agenda.
To restore a greater sense of unity and peace for everyone right now, let's consider how we might do some things differently. Things like being more attentive and attuned to the feelings that are coming across in what people are saying or listening without an agenda and showing sensitivity and understanding of other people's perspectives and feelings. To do these things differently, we need to understand and to develop the skills around empathy.
There are three types of empathy. There's Cognitive Empathy, which is having an understanding of what people are thinking. There's Emotional Empathy, which is having a sense of what they're feeling and the emotions that they're going through. And then there's compassionate empathy, which is at a deeper level, which spurs you on and inspires you to take action to help.
I know in my own life, this is something that I work on all the time and I'm not perfect at it. And as we've talked about before, that's never going to be the goal. I do have a sense of what other people are feeling, and I'm very attuned because of the development of Emotional Intelligence.
And for us to be able to do that, we need to go back to where we talked about self-awareness and we need to have an understanding of what emotions we are going through ourselves so that we can recognise what others could be going through as well.
So, let me give you three tips on what we can do when we develop empathy, when we've developed this skill and this crucial competency of Emotional Intelligence, that allows us to be more socially competent.
Number one is to suspend all judgment. A lot of times, when I witnessed what I've been witnessing and when I've done it in my own life and had to check myself on it, the core of the challenge is judgment, whether it's judgment on ourself or judgment on the other people or judgment on the whole situation.
So, when we suspend all judgment, it takes it out of the equation. So, we can go into the situation, whether it's something that we're seeing, whether it's something that we're reading, whether it's something that we're listening to with an open mind, just like we do when we are getting feedback from others when we ask for it.
The second thing we can do is to listen to what's not being said, to go deeper than just the surface level. So, when we suspend all judgment, we're in an environment where we're able to do that. So now, using active listening, we're able to sense and feel the underlying issues that someone might be going through or in that situation.
And number three is that when we want to get involved in a conversation, whether it be on social media, face to face, on the phone, however we're doing it with our body language, we need to first acknowledge what we think we've seen, what we think we've heard. A lot of times when I've fallen foul to this, it's because I've made a decision that this is what this person's trying to say.
This is what their real agenda is. This is who they're aligned with. This is whatever. So, by reflecting back and asking questions, rather than reacting with a comment, we're able to find out what the real story is.
So, empathy. It's a key competency of Social and Emotional Intelligence and one that we can all brush up on a little bit. Right now, there's an environment going on and around the world that can bring out some behaviours in us that are a little bit surprising. It's not how we might normally respond or react.
So, if this episode has touched you and ignited something in you to want to know more, make sure that you get in touch and ask your questions, whether that be in the podcast, on my YouTube channel, or in the various social media outlets that you might be watching this or listening to it and ask questions. I'd love to help you because we could all do with a little bit more empathy around the world right now.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, where we will continue to talk about competencies of Social and Emotional Intelligence that will help us go beyond COVID-19 and enjoy every aspect of our life a little better. I'll see you then.
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Do you find yourself always calm and control in emotionally-charged situations or do you go into complete overwhelm and lose control of your behaviour? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence by learning to manage our disruptive emotions.
So, let me start by saying that managing emotions is not about getting rid of them. Emotions are there for a purpose. Our emotions are cues and clues and signs to help us to navigate what's going on around us and within us. The way we feel gives us an indication of how we are processing external stimuli. And depending on whether or not that is linked to a highly-charged experience, a memory or a belief structure that you have, that will determine whether or not you respond in your logical brain or react out of the emotion.
I don't know about you, but this is a major problem that I've had to work on for my entire life. I've been able to learn through my studies in Emotional Intelligence how to employ a strategy so that even though I have the emotion going on, whether it's positive or negative, I can allow the decision-making process to happen from the logical brain, from the prefrontal cortex.
As we've talked about before in our neuroscience 101 that our brain has certain parts within it that control different functions. And if we look at it from just an overall holistic view so that we can understand what I'm talking about here today, we have the limbic brain, as some people call it, which is deep in the center of the brain, which, linked to the hippocampus and our emotional memory, have a couple of sensors there, little almond-shaped nodes, called amydalae and what they do is they determine whether or not there's a threat by the data that's coming into the brain.
So, all data except smell, which is in the olfactory system, comes into the brain via the thalamus and what it does, it then distributes that data to the limbic brain and to the neocortex at the same time.
Now, depending on what the amygdala finds when it does that threat assessment, it will determine whether or not that data continues to go to the logical brain. If the amygdala senses that there's something that we need to fear, there's something that we need to put a hold on what we're doing, we need to fight, we need to freeze, whatever it is, then it will give the signal, "Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!" And it'll actually cut off all the sensory data from continuing to go to the logical brain.
The prefrontal cortex is the executive command center just behind our forehead here and it's the front third of the cerebral cortex, the neocortex, and it makes good decisions. It's there for emotional regulation. It's where our creativity takes place and where we decide on logic what we're going to do. So, if our emotional situation traps how we feel and traps all that data down in the emotional brain, then we just go over and over it in our head as an emotional thing that's happening, asking ourselves, "Why does this happen?" And then we react based on our beliefs, our previous experiences, et cetera.
So, what we want to do is we want to learn a strategy to get it back up into the logical brain so that we have a greater chance of responding in a way that's healthy; healthy for us and healthy for others, rather than react. People say that we should avoid overreacting. What I like to do is put a distinction on it that says, "Let's not react to anything, unless it's in an emergency situation." What we want to learn to do with our emotions is always to respond. So, let me teach you a process that you can take away and use right now to be able to keep yourself in a managed state when you are going through emotionally-disruptive experiences.
Now, this is a five step process and the key elements of this process is that it provides a couple of things. It firstly provides the power of the pause. When we experience something in our emotional brain, we can go from that original thought to a learned, ingrained, conditioned behaviour just like that. So, what we want to be able to do so that we can get out of the emotion and back up into the logic as we want to be able to pause and break that pattern. The second thing that it does is it helps us to light up the logical part of our brain by asking a series of questions and going through a process that is logical. So, let's have a look at it.
Step one: what we want to do, firstly, is we want to recognise and name the emotion that we're going through. As we've talked about before, the first thing we've got to do is increase our emotional vocabulary so that we actually know which emotion we're going through and when so that, in the moment, we know which emotion so therefore, we know which one we're managing. Because there's a different strategy for happiness or feeling happy than there is for feeling frustrated, for example. So, step one is name the emotion.
To do this, we ask the question, "What is the emotion I am going through right now?" So, there's two things here. The first thing we've done is we've engaged the logical brain by asking a "what" question. A "what" question is looking for data. It's looking for information. So therefore, it's going to light up the logical part of the brain. The second thing that we've done is we've initiated the power of the pause. So, the first thing we do is name the emotion.
Step two in the process is to audit our thoughts. I love the word audit in this context because an audit is a logical process. When you have an audit done on your taxes, they look for information, not for story. So, when we do an audit on our thoughts, we are, once again, engaging in a logical process and we're looking for information of things that we might be thinking that are creating the emotional disruption. To do this, we ask the question, "What am I thinking right now?" So, step two is to audit your thoughts.
Step three is to decide on the outcome that you want. When we are in emotionally-charged situations, when we've got a pattern of reacting, we forget what it is that we want in the first place. I don't know about you, but there's been many a time where I've got into the emotion of something and I've totally forgotten the logic of why we started the conversation or why that situation even happened in the first place because I got trapped down in the emotion. So, step three is to decide what do you want to happen right now.
And the question we ask ourselves is exactly that, "What do I want to happen right now?" So, once again, we have engaged in a process, in a logical question, so that we get focused on what it is that we want to happen. So therefore, we're able to have a strategy and a response that is going to move us towards that outcome.
Step four is to control the sabotage. I don't know about you, but I know that even though I know the outcome that I want, I can do and say things that will make sure that I don't get there. And I'm not even talking about those unconscious sabotage strategies that we all run, I'm talking about consciously reacting or saying something that is definitely counterintuitive to the outcome that I've decided that I wanted. So, what we need to do here is metaphorically put a piece of duct tape across our mouth to stop and avoid that sabotage. So, to do this, we once again ask some questions and we can do this two ways.
So, the first question we can ask is, "What could I do right now to sabotage that outcome?" Or as we get more in tuned with this new process and it becomes second nature, we can ask the question, "What is one thing that I can do right now to move towards that outcome?" So, depending on your level of maturity in this process as to whether or not you would use the first one, the second one, or a combination of both, the key element to remember here is that we're asking a "what" question so that we're keeping it in the logic and we're pausing around what we would normally do in that situation.
Step five is to decide on the strategy. It's like a chess player. I'm not a great chess player. I know the fundamentals of the game. I can play a game of chess. However, I've never put enough effort into it to be like these masters who know five or six steps in front, moves in front, what they're going to do. I just move a pawn or move the king or move whatever I need to move to stop that thing from happening that I think might happen.
And that's just like working in the emotion, but what a great chess player does, it has a strategy that says, "If that move there takes place, I'm going to do this one." Or, "If that move takes place, I'm going to do this one." Or indeed, "I already know five steps, the five moves down the track where I'm going to move."
So, in this controlling and managing our emotional situation in this disruption, step five is choosing a logical path, a logical strategy, a next step that we can do so that we can respond.
For example, if I am feeling frustrated, the strategy for feeling frustrated would be to remove myself from this frustration, remove myself from the thoughts that are creating the frustration. My strategy could be to ask questions, to get clarity around the misunderstanding around the emotions that I was going through before I allowed myself to get frustrated. So, step number five is to decide on a strategy.
So, there you have it, five steps that you can go through where you name the emotion, where you audit your thoughts, where you decide on the outcome, where you control the sabotage, and where you decide on the strategy so that you can respond and get the outcome that you want. Managing our emotions, as I said, is not about getting rid of them, it's not about ignoring them or suppressing them, it's about acknowledging them, feeling them, and then having a strategy to use them to help us to go forward in a logical response.
Well, that's it for me this week. Join me again next week when we continue to look at our behaviour and how we can change our behaviour to get the outcomes that we want. I'll see you then.
Do you have to consciously think about your poor behaviour to get it to come up or does it just turn up out of the blue without an invitation? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence and our Behavioural Self-Control by talking about changing our behaviour patterns.
You and I have been doing things a certain way for many years. And as we've learnt over the many weeks that we've been together now that our beliefs, the meanings we put on things, the experiences that we've been through, and all the conditioning that has gone on over the years that we've been on the planet have created a set of neural pathways in our brain that says, "When this happens, I do that."
Has there ever been anything that you've decided that you want to change? Whether it be your health and vitality, whether it be the way that you operate at work or the way that you work with these certain people, whatever it is, whatever behaviour. It could be becoming a non-smoker or changing any type of behaviour and you've found it difficult to make the change.
The reason for that is that you are fighting against a deeply ingrained pattern in your brain, backed up by limiting beliefs and thoughts that you have around certain things that are not serving you. So, what I want to do today in this short video is just give you the process, a logical process that you can take yourself on whenever it is that you're wanting to change your behaviour.
Now, this is a four step process and I've attached some alliteration to it because I find, for me, it makes it easier for me to remember and bring up when I need to. And what I want to do today is teach you the process, the procedure, and then as you practice, that it will become one of the newly ingrained neural pathways in your brain and it'll happen automatically.
The key to anything that I've been teaching you over the last few weeks comes not in the information that I give you, but in the implementation of you putting it into action. So if this is an area that you really want to work on in your life and you want to change some certain behaviours, it's not enough to just hear a motivational talk from me. So, let me take you through the process.
The process is a series of four R's and the end result of this process is another R and that is to rewire our brain. Through neuroplasticity, we know that at any age, we can relearn things. So, the first thing we need to do, as we've talked about before, is unlearn the things from the past so that we can relearn the new stuff. This process works on doing that in a logical sequence so that you get the result that you want.
Step one in the process, the first R, is recognise. So, what is it that we want to recognise? We want to recognise that the thought pattern, the belief, the mindset, the behaviour that we are currently using is not serving us. It's not actually giving us the result that we want. Now, as we go through this process of recognising this, we're going to have that mini-me that we learned how to reprogram a few weeks ago shouting at us and going, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not true. What you're recognising there, that's fake news."
We don't want that because that means that when we recognise it, we're going to change it. And at this point, we've still got a belief that it is serving us. So, you may need some help from a coach to help you to go through this process if those beliefs and behaviours are really ingrained, but let me be your coach right now and help you to go through it and at least get the pattern in place.
So if I've got a belief that says that I can't do something, that belief is definitely going to stop me from doing something. So if I recognise that that belief is the first thing that's holding me back, that's the first step. If it's a behaviour, like I talked about a couple of weeks ago or last week, whenever it was, if I recognise that me tooting the horn at someone three cars in front of me, who is totally oblivious to me being there anyway, is only creating more anger and frustration for me and for the people in the cars in front of me, then I'll want to do something about it. So, step one is to recognise the behaviour that's not serving you.
Step two and the second R is to reject. Now, this one's a little bit more unfamiliar, a little bit more challenging because it's one thing to recognise the behaviour, but unless we reject it, we're not going to do anything about it. So, we need to have that conversation with our inner dialogue, with our current belief system, and we need to go, "No, no, no. I know you think that it was doing this for us, but it's not."
So, I need to reject it before I'll do anything about it. So, we've recognised what it is. We'd now rejected it as being something that we need in our life, something that we want in our life, something that we want to continue to do. It's gone.
Step three, the third R, is to replace. Now, here's the thing: if we recognise something and reject it, but we don't have anything else that we can do instead, we'll very easily go back to what we were doing before. So, we need a new behaviour, a new thinking, a new strategy that we can replace the original one with.
When I do work with a lot of clients around different areas of their life, addictions they might want to get rid of, let's say they're wanting to become a non-smoker, then what I'll help them to do as they're going through that process, because that's a chemical addiction, is get them to have some carrot sticks. And when they feel like having a cigarette and they've now recognised that it's not helping them and they've rejected that, what I'll get them to do is to reach for one of these carrot sticks and put that in their mouth instead.
So, we're doing a break of the behaviour pattern in a more subtle way. And over a period of time, we'll be able to wean ourselves off that as well. So, we talked about last week in those triggers and the behaviour that came out of them what would be a different response and they are things that we would replace the original behaviours with. So, step three, now that we've recognised, we've rejected, is to replace. Give ourselves something else to do, instead of the old behaviour.
Step four is repetition. So, step four is to repeat the process, the new behaviour that you've replaced it with over and over and over again, so that you then rewire that part of your brain, that pattern that in the old days, when you did this or thought this, it would lead you that way, it now is going to take you down a new path. So, you've now got a neural pathway that's built stronger than the old one and that only comes with repetition and that's how neuroplasticity works.
So, we've got a four part process: recognise the behaviour, reject it as being useful, replace it with something that's resourceful and is going to give us the results we want, and then repeat that process over and over again so that we rewire our brain. It's been said that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. What we now have with this process is the ability to change our behaviour.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this conversation around managing our behaviour and our responses, our Emotional Intelligence by talking about two critical elements that we need to be able to make all these changes, and that is support and accountability. I'll see you then.
Are you able to speak your truth assertively or do you hold back because you fear what people might think about you? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around this important subject of Personal Power by helping you to be more assertive in your communication and to say no more often.
Being assertive means you're able to stand up for yourself in a calm, positive way without being either aggressive or passively allowing people to continue their poor behaviour. To do this, we need to revisit our priorities. We need to make sure that we are clear what's most important to us. And if you haven't got it by now, that number one priority needs to be you because out of you comes everything else. So, get clear on what it is that you do want and you don't want out of life; what it is that's most important to you, whether that be your health and well-being, whether that be your family, your friends, whatever it is for you.
And the second thing that we need to make sure that we consider are the decisions that we are making and the reason that we're making them. So, we've talked about the Performance Trap, and we've talked about the fact that sometimes we say yes to things and we do things and we put up with things based on our need to overcome those fears: the fear of not being enough, the fear of not belonging in the fear of not being loved.
So, sometimes we'll make those decisions that feed that unhealthy need for approval from others and then we regret it and we say yes to things out of obligation or out of wanting to get that approval, which actually makes us say no to things which are our priorities. So, what I want to do this week is take you through a process and help you to be able to speak your truth in an assertive way that puts your priorities first, and so that you end up saying yes to things that are important and no to things that aren't and no to things that you would normally say yes to, because you're feeding that unhealthy need for approval.
So, as I said, the first thing we need to do is we need to make sure that we understand our priorities. So if you haven't done this yet, or it's something that you need get to get more clarity on, what I want you to do is ask yourself a few questions and take some notes so that you can get clear about what's really important. Now to do this, we need to make sure that we've got that inner dialogue under control. This needs to be the big version of you that you're having this conversation with because your mini-me, that small version of you will steal those priorities from you as you go to write them down.
So, get yourself ready, get yourself in a state where you're thinking about you and the importance of the things that are your priorities, and we'll get a list down together. And ask yourself, "What's most important to me about my health? What's most important to be about my relationships, about my family, about my career, my business? What's most important to me about my finances, about my fun and recreation, about where I invest my time? So, step one is to make sure that we're clear as to what our actual priorities are. It's only then that we're able to put some boundaries around those and speak out truth so that we can go to those priorities.
So now that we have that list of priorities, here's something to consider: whenever we are saying no to someone, we're not saying no to them, we're actually saying yes to our priorities. And that, for some of us, is a flip of what we normally do. What we normally do is the boss comes in and says, "Hey, I need you to work back every night, this week." And you know that you've got your daughter's recital or your son's soccer game or whatever it is that you have promised that you're going to go to, and they're your real priorities.
But by saying no to the boss, to your partner, whoever it is, you're actually saying yes to your daughter, to your son, to your friend, your spouse, whatever it is, to yourself. So, what we're doing by having that mindset is eliminating the negativity around saying no to people. You're not saying no, you're actually saying yes to yourself.
The second thing to understand is that when people make a request, it's exactly that. It's a request. It's not something that we have to jump at. And I don't know about you, but I certainly was someone that before they got the words out, I'm going, "Yes. Yeah, I'd love to do that." And then when they walk away, going, "Oh, no. Now I've got to do that." So, it's a request. So when someone makes a request, what we can do, if we stay in our logical brain, is we can get some more information around that. We can give ourselves space to eliminate that instant reaction of saying yes. So, someone asks us to do something, whether it be a friend or whoever.
So, the first thing to do is to obviously remember if it's against your priorities. So if someone wants you to do something and you are thinking of your priorities, and you go, "Okay. If I do that, I'm actually going to be saying no to that." That's step one. The second thing to do is go, "Hey, that sounds like something that I could possibly do. Could I get some more information what's actually involved in that?" What if it's a situation at work where someone wants you to do more and they've brought you in this pile of stuff and said, "Hey, I need you to do this by Friday." We're able to go, "Okay, yeah. Look, I'd love to do that for you. Can I ask you which one of these other things that you wanted me to do by Friday would you like me to put aside?"
Because what you're doing is you're negotiating. You're having a conversation around it, rather than just going, "Yep. I'll do that." And then Friday comes and you don't get that done and you don't get the other stuff done because you've created overwhelm.
So, learning to speak your truth is simply having dialogue that says, "Hey, let's look for some alternative solutions here. Who else in the team could actually do some of these things?" Whatever it is. However, to get to this place, we need to go right back to the start and that is remembering our priorities.
Because if we have someone that just puts ourselves last, we don't really care. "Yes, boss. I'll do that by Friday. Yes, friend. I'll come and help you move." Whatever it is. And then, we'll work late into the night or whatever it is just to get that done so that they approve of us. So they like us so that we belong and then feel bad about ourselves, about what we said no to, and that's our true priorities.
Knowing your priorities and staying true to them helps you to say no gracefully to others, because what you're doing at that time is you're saying yes to yourself. You're honoring a commitment that you made to yourself about your true priorities.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this journey of going beyond COVID-19 by working on other areas of our Emotional Intelligence. I'll see you then.
Are you someone that can set healthy boundaries for your life or do you let people treat you the way that they want to treat you and then feel bad about it later? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around developing our Emotional Intelligence in the competency of Personal Power by talking about exercising some assertiveness and setting healthy boundaries.
Personal Power will empower you to not only set healthy boundaries, but to enforce them as well. There's no point putting boundaries in our life, if we then allow people to come within those boundaries without there being any consequences. And I talked about being assertive, so assertive is not aggressive.
So once again, as with all things to do with working with people, with relationships, it's not so much what we do that gets us in problems, it's how we do it. So, being assertive says, "No, no, no. I actually have something that is a value to me and I'm letting you know that." To do this practice that I'm going to teach you today, to take this strategy and use it, I want to remind you of, firstly, of two components of this whole Personal Power journey that we have to grasp before we'll do this.
The first one is self-care. So if you're still somebody that even after going through all these with me up to date and you're on the journey with us, if you're still someone that thinks self-care is selfish or self-care is not something that you deserve, then I would consider getting with someone, whether it be a friend or a coach, someone who can help you to realise that this is a prerequisite to having Personal Power. This is a prerequisite to being able to be assertive and set healthy boundaries. So, the first key element in boundary setting is an understanding and a belief that you are worthy of having those boundaries and what those boundaries give you. So point number one, exercise self-care.
The second principle to grasp is speaking your own truth. Now, we talked about a couple of weeks ago removing the masks and being who you really are. And as you can see, once again, and this is a sequential journey that we're going on now because we need to remove the mask so that the truth we speak is actually our truth. It is actually your truth.
So once again, it's not about what we do here, it's how we do it. Feeling worthy, feeling valuable, knowing that you've got something to say, that your boundaries, that your values, your beliefs are important is what we definitely need to have in place so that we will speak the truth. Because as you'll see, as we go into the strategy of how to set these boundaries and how to enforce them, we need to be able to speak up with a voice of authority so that people get the message.
So, the first place we need to set boundaries is for ourself. As we go through this process, I'll be talking about dealing with others. But what I want you to also consider is your own internal dialogue, your own conversations and behaviour that you have with yourself. And we've talked about retraining that mini-me and getting that into dialogue-healthy and we really need to work on that here with ourself as well.
We need to make sure that we set boundaries for ourself and we make sure that we enforce them in the way that we behave, in the way that we talk to ourselves, in the way that we treat ourselves. So, that's the first place we need to start is with yourself. And then the next place is to work on setting the boundaries with others and to do that, it is a process of two decisions and four steps. Let's have a look at them.
So, let's start with the two decisions. The first decision that we need to make is to decide what it is that we want from other people, decide how we want people to treat us, decide what is important to us and what we need to set boundaries around. So, the first step is to have an understanding of what your priorities are, what's most important to you in your life, and to decide what boundaries you're going to set.
The second decision we need to make is to be extremely sensitive about those boundaries, to enlarge those boundaries, and to be constructive about enforcing them. So, the first part of this process is to make those two decisions: decide what we want and decide that we're going to enforce them.
The next thing we need to look at, now that we've seen the two decisions and we know what they are, is the four steps and we'll go through them one at a time just to get an understanding of them. And then, I'll give you an example and some language and a script that you can use so that you can go and set those boundaries with people.
The first step is to educate and inform people of what your boundaries are. We're not mind readers. Human beings need to know what it is that you want so that you can then enforce those boundaries. So, the first step is to have conversations with people that are in your life, no matter where they are, whether it's in your family, whether it's in your workplace, and do it in a matter of fact way. So, we're not being aggressive and saying, "This is what I want. These are what my boundaries are and don't step over them." We're just letting people know who we are. We're letting them in a little bit. We're saying, "This is what's important to me." So, step number one is to educate and to inform people of what the boundaries are.
The second step is to let people know that if it continues, this is what you're going to do. So if the behaviour goes outside your boundaries, the next step is to make sure that people know, "Hey, if you continue to do that, this is what I'm going to need to do." And the second part of that is to make them understand how it makes you feel when that behaviour happens. So, we've educated people and we're now telling them what we're going to do if it continues. So, let's now have a look at what the third step of the process is.
Step three is where we really need to exercise our Personal Power, where we need to be able to speak our truth and be true to ourself and step up and give people a warning of what you're about to do if the behaviour doesn't change, what you're going to separate yourself from, whether it be permanently or temporarily until the behaviour changes.
And step four, and this my friends is where the rubber meets the road, this is where that second decision of being sensitive about our boundaries and knowing that we're going to enforce them is to actually do what you say you're going to do, is to actually remove yourself, separate yourself. Whatever the warning that you gave, make that beyond being an idle threat to actually taking place and separate yourself from that situation, from that person, whatever it is, whether it be permanently or temporarily so that people know that that boundary is really important to you.
So now that we know the two decisions and the four steps, what I want to do is I want to give you some language and a script around that so that you can understand it. And you can take this right here, right now, today, and go and talk to someone about a boundary, which might be something that you haven't been enforcing because you didn't feel like you had the power to do that.
So, let's have a little bit of a scenario around this. Let's say that you're in your workplace and you go to meetings and in those meetings, you've got a particular person that continually puts you down, that speaks over the top of you, that raises their voice when they're talking to you and it's something that you're not wanting to continue.
So, let me just use this script now to take you through a process that will help you to understand, if that is a situation for you, what to do and what to say. And if there are other boundaries that are coming up for you as we are going through this that obviously you put that context into this situation.
So, the first thing that we do is we make sure that people know what the behaviour is or make sure people know what the boundary is. So, let's say it's Bob and Bob is doing the yelling and the putting down, et cetera. So, we're in the meeting and we might go, "Hey, Bob. Can I just see you after the meeting?" So, it's a casual meeting where you go to inform Bob of what the challenge is.
So, the first step is to tell them how you feel. And that's why we need to know how we feel and why we need to know how to name the emotion and all the stuff that we've done up until now. So, begin by saying, "Well, when you...", and then tell them whatever the behaviour is. So, in this case, say, "Bob, when you raise your voice at me in the meeting, it makes me feel worthless. It makes me feel like I'm not a part of the team. It makes me feel less than. It makes me feel like I don't want to contribute to the meeting at all.
The next thing we do is tell them what we want. "So Bob, can I ask you that in the meeting? Would it be okay if you just talk to me in a normal, conversational tone like we're doing right now? And if you would let me finish what it is that I'm talking about before you jump in." So, we're now telling them, "What do I want?" So, "When you..., I feel..., I want..."
The last part of the process is to use the term: "If you..., I will..." Now, we can use this in a positive or consequence way. So for example, "So Bob, if you do that, I will be able to contribute more in the meeting." And we could also have, "So Bob, if you continue to yell at me and put me down, I will just withdraw in the meeting as if I'm not even there. And in fact, if it continues after that, I'm actually going to stop coming to the meetings."
So, setting boundaries is a two decision, four step process: Decide what you want, decide to be sensitive about enforcing that, and taking people through a process of "When you..., I feel..., I want..." And "If you..., I will..."
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this journey of Emotional Intelligence in the critical competency of Personal Power by learning how to speak our truth assertively. I'll see you then.
When you spend time in the past, is it a positive experience or do you come away from it feeling really, really bad about yourself? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence and building our Personal Power by having a conversation to help us to recognise our past achievements.
If you're like me, I used to carry around a list of everything that I did wrong. It was all there, ready to go, ready to come up and remind me. It was fuel for my mini-me, for that inner dialogue. It was a reservoir for it to be able to reach down into and pull up and go, "Hey, remember this? Rememaber when you got that wrong? Remember when you failed that? Remember when your marriage didn't work? Remember when you didn't get that position, you didn't get that client?"
Whatever it was. It was this big reservoir of all the past experiences that I would nurse and rehearse. "You remember when your mom left you on a doorstop as a baby?" All those things. And I'm sure you've got those similar things as well.
And as we talked about last week, we want to give a better inner dialogue. We want to have an opportunity to have some good stuff be spoken to us because that'll propel us and empower us to be who we can be. So, what I want to do today is to help you to look at things from a different way.
There's three positions that we can be in. We can be in our past, in our present, or in our future. And I know that you know that it's great to live in the present moment, to have an understanding of where we're going and to learn from where we've been, but to be able to enjoy being in this present moment right here, right now.
And I know that so many people, they miss out on the beauty of the present because they're still beating themselves up about what happened in the past, or they're still feeling uncertain about what's happening in the future. And particularly at this time of COVID-19 right now, as we're doing this, people have got some challenges around that and they're rightly so to have those things that they're thinking about because this has been a big change to all of our lives.
What I want to do is to help you to feel confident in your own abilities to develop that Personal Power so that you can enjoy being in the moment, knowing that you have everything within you and around you to be able to have the future that you want to have. So to do that, we need to recognise our past achievements. We need to look for the same amount of evidence or more that we can do things, that we are good enough, that we are liked and we are loved than we had in that reservoir of things to the contrary.
I remember when I was in first year of high school. They called it first form then. That's how long ago it was. And I remember this was the time I went to high school early. I went when I was 15 and I was the youngest kid in my class and I was short and I had all these issues. That was the time when I found out about my mom abandoned me as a child and I took that meaning on that was the negative one, rather than what it really meant and all those things we've talked about before. And if you haven't heard those stories, please go back and I'd love to share them with you.
So in that time, I wasn't feeling all that good about myself. And we had our athletics carnival at school and I had an opportunity to go in some races and to jump things and to throw things and all that sort of stuff. And I remember this one event, it was the 800 meters track event. The one where you have to stay in your stagger until you get down around here, and then you can come into the inside lane and do a couple of laps and it's 800 meters of that 400 meter track.
Now, that gun went off and I took off like a startled gazelle and I came across and I led that race from the stagger all the way to the finish by quite some margin. And not only did I complete the race and win, I actually broke a school record. And I'd love to say that I had an experience when I got up on the dais and they put the medal around my neck.
You know what it's like. You run across the line and there's a teacher there with a blue ribbon in their hand and they want to get it to the person who came across first. And the next one gets the red ribbon and then the green ribbon or whatever way they go. But all I could see was blue this day.
I remember getting that blue ribbon and I remember pinning that on myself and feeling proud of myself, feeling so good. And in that moment, I could have done anything. I believed in myself. I forgot what was going on. I started listening to my empowering voice. Now, it was a process and it didn't take long for the other voice to go, "Hang on a minute. That's just one race, dude. Let me just remind you of all the other things that you've failed at."
But I tell you that story to give you an example of what I would love you to do. I would love you to go into your past when you were a small child, as you were going into school, as you went into high school, university, became a parent, whatever it was for you, and I want you to find two or three things, more if you can, experiences that happened in your life where in that moment, you felt proud. You felt good about yourself. You experienced an emotion, which you want to experience again.
Now when you go to do this, here's what might happen because we're still just starting to retrain our mini-me. As you go to think about those things and to give yourself permission to feel good about yourself, your mini-me could decide to try and take that away from you and remind you of things like, "Well, compared to this, that's nothing. I mean, it wasn't an 800 meter race for goodness sake.
So, what this is going to give you an opportunity to do is two things: One, it's going to give you an opportunity to practice what we talked about last week. And if you haven't seen this or heard this, go back and do it and it's going to give you some resource to be able to retrain your mini-me with. And as that voice comes up, go, "Hey, hang on a minute." So, acknowledge and then retrain.
So, I want you to go through and find those places in your life and hey, if you can find one, that's great. Let's work on that. And I want you to deeply immerse yourself in that moment. I want you to close your eyes, if you need to, and allow yourself to go back into that moment and feel what you were feeling, see what you were seeing, hear what you were hearing, smell what was around you.
What were you touching? What were you doing? And relive that moment. And I want you to recognise what was going on in your body. I want you to recognise how that made you feel and then I want you to ask yourself a question. Was that feeling one of empowerment or did it disempower you? Did it hold you back or did you feel like you could go forward?
And the reason we do this is we want to give our brain reference points that it can refer to. Points in our past when we succeeded and feelings that we felt that we want to repeat. So therefore, what it's going to do, and our inner dialogue will help us to do this, is move towards more of those experiences so that we can feel that way again. Now, something that I really find that I need to stress to people all the time is that when we go into our past, we're there for a moment.
One of the dangers of doing any exercise where you go into the past is that you can camp there. You can pitch your tent and go, "Oh, yes. I remember this life. I remember how it used to be before I had this and before that happened and whatever." Or all the things that happened that were negative in that time can be dumped on us, if we let our mini-me just run rampant.
No, we go back to our past for two reasons: One, define things that didn't quite go so well, learn a lesson and do things differently moving forward. We also go back to the past to find frames of reference, like we talked about today, of the times when we got it right and we learn, "Well, what did we do?" So, I focused totally on the finish line. I didn't worry about anybody else and what they thought or what they were doing, I just focused on me and I focused on running one foot after the other and continuing to run until I got to the end. So, that was a lesson that I learned in that moment.
So today, we've had a conversation that's going to help us to rewire that brain of ours with positive dialogue, with positive frames of reference, to build up our Personal Power, that competency that underpins all the other competencies of Emotional Intelligence by looking into our past and acknowledging those times when we did feel good about ourself, those times when we felt that we did achieve. And the reason we're doing this as well is so that we develop a pattern of looking for the good, of looking for the achievements, of looking for evidence of "I can", rather than listening to the false evidence of "I can't".
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue to build our Personal Power by learning how to enforce healthy boundaries. I'll see you then.
Are the conversations that you're having with yourself healthy or do you have that small inner voice that always wants to hold you back?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around building our Personal Power by talking about changing the internal dialogue.
I don't know about you, but I have lots of conversations with different people every day. And the conversations that I have with myself, I have found to be the most important. Now, I'm not talking about sitting in a corner, talking to myself. I'm talking about that inner dialogue that we all have that either empowers us or holds us back. And I know for many years, this was a major issue for me.
Every time I went to expand my comfort zone, every time I went to do something that was outside those limiting beliefs that we've worked on before, I have this voice that would remind me of where I really belong, remind me of my shortcomings, remind me of what it is that I should be doing and shouldn't be doing. And in my experience of working with people all around the world, just like me, human beings, I find that this is the case for everyone.
Now, the first thing we need to understand is that this voice was created by us. I like to call this voice my mini-me, my little version of me, that voice that is deep inside my subconscious that reminds me of who I really am. Now, the challenge with that voice is a lot of times, that reminder of who you really are is not the truth. It's a truth that you have created based on the things that we've talked about in the weeks previous, where we've talked about those limiting beliefs, those things that you've done in your past, those experiences that you've had that you have created a meaning from that changes the way you feel about yourself, changes the way you see yourself.
And that inner dialogue is either helping you or harming you. Then, what I want to do today is to help you to retrain that voice, to make sure that we understand that because we were able to train that voice. We can retrain that voice today. Let's get started.
Now, we've all heard of this thing called the comfort zone. It's that place where we feel safe, where we feel confident, where we feel competent, and anything that's outside that comfort zone, by virtue of what it's called, feels uncomfortable. Now, one of the things that I realised years ago is that language is vitally important. What we say to ourselves, what we say to others then creates what we get back. So, it's really important for us to understand some language around comfort zone.
Now, you've all seen them. You've seen those memes that say the magic is all outside your comfort zone. Well, it's not. It's uncomfortable out there. So, it's not about it being magic and it's not about being hard or what's inside the comfort zone being easy. It's all about whether or not it's familiar or unfamiliar.
So when we look at it in this context, when we look at it in this way, we can see things that we now do that we might say easy, I'd like to say familiar, that fit inside our comfort zone. Now, remember the first time you did some of those things. I remember the first time that I picked up a telephone to ring someone that I didn't know to ask them to take me on and utilise my services.
Many, many years ago, I almost had a pink fit. I had butterflies that were not flying in formation. And my inner dialogue was reminding me that they were not interested in me because I wasn't good enough. But nowadays, I can pick the phone up and I can ring anybody. I can speak to anyone because I'm not ringing them to see if they like me or if I belong or if I'm good enough, I'm bringing them to offer them a service, a solution that they need.
So now, it's in my comfort zone. It's familiar. It's something that comes easily and effortlessly for me and I'm sure there's things for you as well. I'd love you to talk about them in the comments below. So when we want to retrain our mini me that inner dialogue, we need to remember that we have trained that mini-me, that small voice to keep us inside that comfort zone. Because when we step outside that comfort zone, it feels uncomfortable.
So let's say for example, you're one of these people that doesn't like speaking in public. Apparently, in the list of fears all around the world, speaking in public is only second to death by fire. So, there's something about speaking in front of other people that people feel fearful of. And we know it's because their focus is on themselves and they're concerned that they won't be good enough, that they won't belong, that people won't like them. So, it's not the speaking in public itself. That's a challenge because we've all learned to speak since we were tiny babies.
So, let's just say that you're one of those people. And if it's not speaking in public for you, just put your own story in there. But let's just say that you decide one day that you're going to get up and speak in public. Let me tell you, and if you've already done this, you'll know there's that small, not so quiet, inner voice that will remind you that that's not something that we do.
"We don't speak in public. We've got nothing good to say. No one's going to listen to us. What if they don't like it? What if they throw things at us? What if, what if, what if...?" And what do we do? We then have a choice to go, "Yeah, you're right. What was I thinking? Thank you. I'll just pull back from doing that." And I'll miss out on that opportunity. And there's many times in my life where I've done that, where I've let that small voice keep me comfortable in my beliefs about myself and about my ability and about the world, and it stopped me from going forward and serving in the way that I'm meant to serve.
So if you're ready to retrain that voice right now, I want you to come on a journey with me and I'm going to take you through a simple process to do that.
Now, I, at the time of doing this video, have three amazing grandkids. They are the greatest grandkids on the planet and I've taught them that all they need to do is say, "Grandpa!", and I forget everything else that's going on around me and I focus on them. That's exactly the same as what you and I have done with that inner voice. We've trained it that all it needs to do is say these things that we've taught it to say and it will get our attention. So, let's just say, while I'm talking to you right now, one of my grandkids came to my studio door and said, "Grandpa! Grandpa!", and I totally ignored them and kept talking to you.
Yeah, we all know what's going to happen. They're going to change their behaviour, their tone of voice, the volume of their voice to get my attention because I have disrupted their pattern. Normally, they speak, I listen. Full attention. It's exactly the same with your mini-me. So, let's just come back to the analogy of getting up on stage. Let's say you go to step up on stage. You take that first step and your mini-me goes, "What do you think you're doing?" Instead of just walking up on stage, the first thing that we need to do is acknowledge the mini-me. Why? Because we have created it and we've asked us to keep us safe.
So, let's say it's one of my grandkids coming in again and I go, "Hey! Just excuse me, everybody." And I get them to come over and I hold them up and I go, "Hey, this is my grandchild." And I give them attention. I say, "Hey, I'm just going to talk to these nice people for a minute and then you and I are going to get ice cream." We do the fist pump, they sit down, and we're ready to go. Now, the children, it's a metaphor. We do know that if I don't go back to them immediately, then we're going to continue with the same behaviour, but work with me.
So, let's say we were to do the same thing with our mini-me. So instead of disrupting that pattern, we would have say, "Okay, I hear you. I know I taught you to stop me from speaking in public, but I want you to unlearn that because we've got a lot to say, and we've got something that these people need to hear. So therefore, watch and learn." The beautiful thing about a mini-me, that inner dialogue, is that it can be retrained. If we trained it once, it tells us straight away that it's teachable. So therefore, just like us, just like every bit of learning that anyone does to be able to move forward from past beliefs, from past learnings, we need to first unlearn.
So once we've unlearned that past belief, the root cause of why you wouldn't walk up on stage, the now mini-me will go, "Okay, I'm ready to learn the next bit.", just like they did the first time you taught them the last belief. So, you get up on stage and you speak and it's fantastic and the people love it and you have served and you've given your best. And by the way, I teach people how to speak in public and sometimes, I'm sure that every speech that they said no to doing, once they get up there to do a two minute speech and they've got to just come out and you've got to hook them to get them off the stage.
The reason being is the belief has been debunked. We've gotten rid of that one, chucked it out back to where it belongs, and we've got a new belief now that says, "Hey, this speaking in public thing is good." So now, over a period of time of repeating the new behaviour, we now develop it in a dialogue that says, "Get up and speak on stage because now we have changed the underlying belief. We've changed the underlying language.
So, I had to retrain your mini-me to get on top of this inner dialogue, the first thing we need to do is retrain that inner voice. We need to dispel those myths, get those new beliefs embedded and through neuroplasticity with my friend just behind me here, our brain, we can rewire those neural pathways. So when that initial thought comes up or that opportunity or that behaviour or that experience, we think this way, rather than what we did before.
So, a key step in being able to develop our Personal Power is to change the inner dialogue, the way that we speak to ourself. So, what I want you to do over this coming week is I want you to look at some of those limiting beliefs. I want you to flip those beliefs and I want you to affirm those new beliefs to yourself. I want you to practice retraining that inner dialogue so that we can have a healthy voice that empowers us that moves us forward.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join us again next week when I'm going to continue this conversation and add some layers to this retraining of our mini-me by looking into our past and looking at our previous success so that we get some evidence of the things that we can do to help us to dispel the myths that we have about the things that we can't. I'll see you then.
Do you show the world a true version of yourself every day or is your whole life one big masquerade ball? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Personal Power by helping you to remove the mask.
For most of my adult life I got around pretending that I was someone that I wasn't. And once again, the motive for doing that was to get people's approval. And as we talked about last week, that can be very debilitating and hold you back from being who you truly are. And wearing that mask to pretend that I was this person because that was the person that I thought would be good enough, would belong and would be loved meant that there was a lot of stress. You see, pretending is a fun game when you're a kid, but when you're an adult, pretending can get you into some hot water. Pretending can cause a lot of anxiety around your performance.
So once again, this whole thing of wearing your mask is counterproductive for the reason that you're actually doing it. It actually puts you in a state where your performance, where your likeability, where your acceptance, all those things are diminished because people are confused by this version of you. It's not the real you and people can sense that. So, what I want to do is I want to give you the benefit of my own personal experience and my experience of working with others and help you to feel confident to remove the masks that you wear during your day.
Now, there are different types of masks and I'm going to deal with just a few of those in this short time together. However, to get started, I want us to realise that it's okay for you to be who you need to be in particular arenas of your life. So for example, when I'm being a husband or being a father, there are certain ways that I will act and behave and perform that are perhaps not as appropriate in being a speaker, a trainer, an educator, a business person. So, I'm not talking about being this cookie cutter that goes around in a monotone way all their life. What I'm more talking about is forcing yourself and pretending that you’re someone that you're not to feed that approval addiction that we talked about.
As I said, there are many types of masks that you could wear. There are masks that hide just a little bit of you and there are masks that totally hide who you are and a lot of those, as we talked about in the Johari window, are in your unknown area where you don't even know that you're putting on these masks. Some of them are in that blind spot area where others can perhaps see it, but you can't see it. Most of them live in the area where the hidden area lives, where you can see it, but others can't because it's a version of you that you're wanting to portray because you think that that is the one that's going to line up and give you the reaction, the response that you want from others.
So, the first mask that I want to help you to get rid of, if it's one that you are accustomed to wearing, is the “I’m okay” mask. You see, when we wear the “I’m okay” mask, it says, “I got everything under control. I don't need any of your help. I'm doing great.” And I know when I wear that mask and when I've worn that mask, that might be what's coming out when you see me, but inside I'm dying. Inside, I'm scared, I'm anxious, I don't know what I'm going to do.
But the reason I'm wearing that mask is because I don't want you to think less than of me than you already do. I don't want you to think because I had a negative belief, a wrong belief that said asking for help was a weakness, I don't want you to think that I'm weak. So, that mask of “I'm okay” is the first mask that we need to remove.
The second mask to remove is one I see a lot in any area of leadership, whether it's in the home, in the workplace, in the community, doesn't matter where it is. Whether it's leading one person or a whole organisation. And that's the mask of “I've got all the answers”. A lot of leaders feel like, “Well, now I'm a leader. Wow, now I have to have all the answers. Now I have to know everything.” And I don't.
So, this is where the imposter syndrome sneaks in and instead of letting people in and know what's really going on, we go, “Okay, I better pretend that I know everything.” And I know in my career that that created a lot of anxiety. It created a lot of seat of your pants working that didn't always get the results that I wanted. It created an opportunity for me to stay up late at night to make sure that I got it ready just so that I could keep wearing that mask tomorrow.
So, the “I know everything” mask is the second mask that we need to remove. Even as a parent or particularly for me as a parent, I've grown okay in saying to my children, “Hey, daddy doesn't know the answer to that. I can help you find out.” And not fearing at all that they're going to think less than of me. But what it's actually doing is modeling to them what I hope they do as they grow up.
And I used the term “daddy” there. My youngest are about to turn 18, my twins. So, it's a great time in their life. They're doing their last year of high school in lockdown, just going back to school now for some time together with their friends and with their teachers. But I'm really hoping that's something that I can instill in them as they go into adulthood as well. So we've had two masks, the “I’m okay” mask and the “I know all the answers” mask.
And the third mask that I want to talk about is the mask of the victim. This is a mask that we wear that says, “I don't have the ability to do this. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I'm not great. Oh, don't ask me to do that because I'm a bad choice for that.” It's that mask that we wear that says, “I'm the victim here.” And what it portrays is how we're really feeling about ourselves and it's keeping us safe from people relying on us, from people giving us responsibility, from people asking us to do things.
What it also does, it's a mask that gives people an opportunity to go, “No, you're great. You're really good at that.” Which is, once again, feeding that approval addiction. So, the “victim” mask is one that may need some help to be recognised so that you know when you're wearing that.
And that “victim” mask is one that's put on by that small inner voice, that one that wants to pull you back and says, “Hey, okay. Don't portray yourself as being who you're not. Don't tell anyone that you’re good. Come back. We're less than. We're not good enough. We're not loved. We don't belong.” So when we wave that mask, we're telling people how to actually deal with us. We're telling people, “Well, hey. Don't think that I'm worthy because I don't.”
And as we build up those affirmations we talked about last week, as we change the beliefs, as we expand things that are unfamiliar to us now and make them familiar and we rebuild those neural pathways, this is a mask that we want to tear off and throw away because it's a mask that's stopping you from being who you really are. It's a mask when you're wearing it, that someone gives you a compliment and you go, “Oh no, no, it wasn't me. It was such and such.” Or, “Oh no, it wasn't really that good. It's not a big deal.” It's diminishing what they say about you to bring it back in line with who you really believe you are.
So as I said, there are many masks that we can wear and we've just talked about three of them. The mask of “I’m okay”, the mask of “I've got all the answers”, and the mask of the victim that says, “I am not worthy.” So when we can overcome what we feel about ourselves, we can become more self-approved. We can work on the layers that I'd been laying down each week. We can then confidently remove the mask and be who it is that we were created to be. Being who I really am, I find that to be the easiest role to play. I don't have to remember any lines. It just comes out of the abundance of my heart and who I am. And I want that for you as well.
So hopefully, that's spoken to someone. If it's just spoken to one person, then my work is done. And I thank you once again for trusting me and helping you along this journey of developing your Emotional Intelligence and particularly Personal Power.
Well, that's it for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this conversation around Personal Power by teaching you how to change the internal dialogue. I'll see you then.
Have you given yourself the total gift of approval or are you continually seeking the approval of others? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Personal Power by talking about removing the Approval Addiction.
For many years in my own life, I cared way too much about what other people thought of me, and I went around being the person who needed to be liked, who needed to be approved of who needed to be accepted by others. This led me to become a people pleaser, to work outside my boundaries and to totally erode away any sense of my own true self. And over the next few weeks, I really want to give you the benefit of my experience, not only in my own life, but working with thousands of people around the world who have this exact same challenge. And I want to help you to overcome the Approval Addiction.
You see, an Approval Addiction is just like any other addiction. It says I cannot go a day without getting it. I need that. If I don't have that approval, then I'm not whole. I'm not able to go through my day and go, “Hey, that was a great day.” So in subconscious and conscious ways, we go around looking for things that we can do so that people can approve of us. Now, there's nothing wrong with getting approval from others. It's a good thing. It's a part of life being affirmed and knowing that people value you. That's a great thing. But when it becomes the motive for everything that we do, that's when the problems arise.
You may or may not have seen me talk about before what I call the Performance Trap and that is where we perform on a daily basis to get the approval externally from other people. So, our whole motive for doing the performance is clouded in this need for approval. I see people like speakers, for example. People who need to present in front of people, they are challenged and fearful of doing it and indeed stumble as they are doing it because of this Approval Addiction.
You see, the reason that we get up on a stage is to impart and inspire to others. Therefore, our focus needs to be on others. Yet when we get up there with a need to be approved of, to be good enough, to belong, to be liked and loved, those three universal fears, then our focus is on what we don't have. Our focus is on the internal. So, we start looking inwards instead of looking outward. So, that's just one example.
So even though our motive is to do our best job so that we get that approval, it's actually counterproductive. It actually creates exactly the opposite because it creates a state within us of overwhelm, of doubt, of fear, of anxiety, and the negative effect of those emotions and us feeling that is apparent in the actual performance. So what we set out to get, we didn't get. And then what happens is over and over, we try to do our best so that you were like me and you approve of me, but I'm not getting the approval. So instead of changing the strategy, what we can do is we can allow that evidence that we're getting to further a road how we feel about ourselves.
So, let me help you to understand how to change from performing to get approval to operating in a way that's going to empower you to be the best version of you. When I found this out, when I was introduced to this concept, I've tweaked and massaged over the years and worked with many people with, it changed my life. And let me tell you, it changed it for the better. No longer was I getting up every day needing to get your approval. It's like this video right now. It is not perfect and it's never going to be perfect because I'm not doing these with a videographer with all the bells and whistles and I've got a few lighting challenges and whatever and my team will fix those up in post-production probably.
But it's not about my performance. It's about what you can take from it. It's about what I can inspire you with. So now that I'm not focused on getting your approval, I'm focused on inspiring you and I'm focusing on you. I hope I'm giving you a much better version of me and you're getting so much more out of it. So, put your hand up right now if you would like me to show you how to break free of the Approval Addiction and I can see hands going up in my mind's eye everywhere.
Because this addiction, just like any other addiction is holding you back from being the best version of you, from being, as we talked about last week, being the you that we need so that when we have you and your uniqueness, and what you bring and your genius, collectively as a world, we can be who we need to be. So, let's take a look at how to shift from the Approval Addiction to being self-approved.
So, step one in breaking this Approval Addiction is to work on your limiting beliefs. And if you want to get some help on that, I've done an episode on that. So, just look at the previous episodes and you'll see about breaking your limiting beliefs, reframing them, changing them. But you form beliefs about yourself, I've formed beliefs about myself, which are not true. They are beliefs that we formed that are based on what people said about us and what experiences we went through and our failures or whatever it was. So, the first thing is to build your own identity. Build yourself up, look for reasons to affirm yourself rather than need it from the external. Every one of us needs affirmation and the more of it that we give ourselves, the less we need from others. So, step one is work on your limiting beliefs.
Step two is to control the inner dialogue. And over the next few weeks, I'm going to do an episode to help you to do that. So, look out for that to control that inner dialogue, that self-talk that tells you that you need the approval, that tells you to do things or to not do things based on that fear, based on not being good enough, based on not belonging, based on not being loved. So, retraining your mini-me as I call it, retraining that inner voice is the key to being able to have a voice that helps you to accept yourself.
Step three is to practice your new beliefs. So now that you've got a more healthy set of beliefs about yourself, about the world, about others, you've got a better internal dialogue that reminds you of those beliefs, the more powerful and positive beliefs. Now, it's a matter of rewiring your brain by practicing the new beliefs over and over and over again. And a great belief to start with is that you are enough. You do belong and you are loved.
So, one of the things that I like to do is help my clients to write out some affirmations. So, as a practical exercise that I want you to do to get the most value out of this is to pause the video or podcast right now. And I want you to write out a list of at least 10 things that you like about yourself. Now when you're doing this, you might find that a little bit of a challenge, a little bit of a struggle because it's unfamiliar. Because what most of us are doing are rehearsing the things that we don't like about ourselves.
So as you're doing it, I want you to have the thought and put it straight to paper. Otherwise, that internal voice is going to steal it from you and go, “No, that's not true. Who do you think you're kidding?” Just stay in your logical brain and put something down that you like about yourself. This was a big challenge for me. I worked on this. This took some help. I had to actually get an external coach to pull these things out of me and my first list, about 90% of them, I didn't believe them, but I practiced them anyway because what we can do is we can rewire our brain and we can trick it with future things that we're moving towards by stating them in the present.
So for example, if you’re someone who has a skill that isn't quite yet where you want it to be, instead of saying, “Oh, look. I'm not good at doing videos.” What I could say instead is, “I'm getting better every time I do a video.” So, it's a moving towards what we want. If you want to really get the benefit, you could go, “I am great at doing videos.” And even though it may not be totally true right now, it's an empowering affirmation for you to move towards.
So, there's some tips, hopefully, that will help you to break free of this Approval Addiction. Now, it's not going to happen overnight because you have a pattern of belief and behaviour that's gone on for many, many years. So, it's a matter of practicing, practicing, practicing, repeating the new beliefs, the new behaviours, listening to what you say about yourself in the positive that allows you then to have a new set of neural pathways that will be your new normal.
So when you start having a negative thought, the positive one would jump straight in and take you where you need to go. So, the Approval Addiction is about needing approval from others. What you do when you set it up, as we've just talked about, is you get to a position of self-approval. You see, a lot of times, we go around wanting from others what we haven't given ourselves. And if you don't yet think that you're good enough, you don't yet think that you belong and you don't yet love yourself, then it's an unrealistic expectation for you to get that from others. So, all approval starts with yourself.
Productivity trainers will tell you to delegate. And let me tell you, the only thing that you never want to delegate is approval. That's for you alone. Eleanor Roosevelt said it so well, “What other people think of you is none of your business and nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
So, Approval Addiction to self-approved is the next step in you developing your Personal Power. I'd love to get some feedback from you, whether you're on my YouTube channel, whether you're in my blog or whether it's on the podcast, whether you're connected on social media in some way, jump into the comments, get into the conversation, and I'd love to be here for you so that you can soundboard these new beliefs off me and I'll come back and I'll answer those, every single one of those personally because I really see the value in being able to help people to develop their Personal Power.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we'll continue this conversation around developing our Personal Power by learning how to remove our masks. I’ll see you then.
Do you have a calm inner conviction about who you are and your ability to get what you want and need in life or do you tend to live in a world of self-doubt?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence beyond COVID-19 by talking to you and starting a conversation that we will have over the next few weeks about what I believe the number one critical competency and that is Personal Power.
Many people are addicted to approval. They care way too much about what other people think about them and what they're saying about them. I know in my own life, for many, many years, this is what was holding me back. Everything that I did, everything that I performed, I was doing it with a motive to get you to like me, to get people to accept me.
You see, we all operate with three universal fears in mind. The first one is the fear of not being enough. That means I'm not good enough. I've got to prove myself to you. The second one is the fear of not belonging. And the third one is the fear of not being loved. And whenever those fears are evident whether or not they're imagined or real, a lot of times we will go into what I call the Performance Trap, where we will do everything possible to get people to think that we're good enough to accept us and make us feel like we belong and to like us and love us. And this is a major problem that erodes our Personal Power.
I also see people with a very low self-confidence, but they look in the mirror and they're not happy with what they see. And I don't just mean physically, their frame of reference from their past and from what's been said to them has eroded away that self-confidence, slowly chipping away at their authentic self, who they really are. And because of this, we become in a position where we're unable to set healthy boundaries, where we let people walk all over us, where we say 'yes' way too easily. And all this angst going on, all this emotional disruption going on in our emotional brain tends to make us feel powerless and overwhelmed.
Then right here, right now in this time of COVID-19, there are many things that I've seen, people making decisions around based on these things. It's like I see people in business going, "Oh, should I be selling things right now?" People are doing it tough right now. They're not getting their income that they were getting. And there's people getting sick and there's people passing away and they're making decisions in that emotion because they care that if I sell something, then people might think this about me.
So it goes away from the logic that if I sell something, I might be able to help the economy and I might be able to help people to develop and grow and navigate this pandemic in a much more comfortable way. I know for myself putting together this self-paced online course, which I'm doing and have done for this time of COVID-19, I had those thoughts and I very quickly said, "You know what? No, you're a leader in this field and you have a resource that's going to help people and you need to keep feeding your children." It's funny that kids, they want to eat every day. So for me, I could make a logical decision because I was making a decision based on how I could serve rather than what people would think.
Personal Power gives you the ability to feel self-approved where it starts with self-love, where you look after yourself or you exercise self-care, where you're confident in your own ability and where you are calm and in control. And when you're calm and in control, you can make decisions that are logical and are strategic and will actually solve the challenges that you are in. And all these things come from developing our Personal Power.
So, what is Personal Power? Personal Power is having a sense of your self-worth and your capabilities. It's about having self-confidence, knowing that you have everything within you and around you to be, do and have whatever it is that you want in life. So, what I want to start this week in doing is laying some principles around Personal Power, and we'll unpack these over the weeks to come because this, as I said, is the area that I feel when we get on top of this, it has an effect on all the other competencies of Emotional Intelligence.
The first is that we need to be authentic. You need to be the real deal, who you were created to be. There's only one you, and we need that so that the world can collectively be the world that it needs to be. For many years, I wore a mask where I pretended that I was this because I was feeding those fears and I cared what people thought. Now, by the way, when I say I don't care what people think anymore, I don't mean in an arrogant way where I don't care what you think. I'll be whatever I want. I'll do whatever I want. No, still remaining humble and teachable, but not doing what I do with the motive of getting you to like me.
To do this, we need to retrain our mini-me. We need to retrain that inner voice, that small, not so quiet, sometimes voice of doubt. That inner dialogue that says, "Well, hang on a minute, Grant. Why would you be able to help people all around the world to develop their Emotional Intelligence and reduce their stress and conflict and be happier in their life and…” No, no, no. Retrain that dialogue to go, “You know what? This is what you do. This is the evidence that you've been doing it and this is what I'm going to use as my frame of reference, not what others have said or what they might say or what I've believed in in the past.
Retraining that voice to be a voice that lifts you up so that when you are having those bad days, which they're okay to have by the way, because we are human, we're not robots. That small voice lifts us up and says, “Hey, come on.” Whispers in your ear and says, “Remember that time you…Remember those people that you helped there? Remember what your kids said about you?” Whatever it is. So, it gives you a different dialogue to build you up.
The third thing to develop your Personal Power is that we need to be able to set and then keep boundaries. Boundaries around our priorities, boundaries around what we believe is most important to us. Boundaries around our self-care. By the way, self-care is not selfish. Self-care says, “I've got a balance of looking after myself so that I can take care of others.” Being able to set boundaries around how we'll let people speak to us, how we'll let people behave around us, and then to be very particular and keeping those boundaries. Learning to say yes to our priorities and no to things that go outside our values because we're not concerned about what people think. We're concerned about who we're supposed to be and what it is that we've been put on the earth to achieve.
The next one is we need to move on quickly from things. I want you to imagine you're in a car right now and you're looking at a big piece of glass in the front of your car. It's called your wind screen. And then in the center of that screen, there is a little mirror, a smaller piece of glass, and that's your rear view mirror. What I want you to do is think about your journey, your life with that in mind. So, the rear vision mirror is just there to have a quick look every now and then to see what's behind. But the main focus is on the larger piece of glass, which is where we're going.
Things happen in life. Situations come every single day in my life, just as they do in yours. People say things. This morning, I had someone on a webinar that I was on who attacked me and it was crazy, but I moved on quickly from it because in the scheme of things, listening to that was going to stop me from doing what I need to do for you right now. So, being more focused on where we're going rather than where we've been and going back to where we've been for two reasons. One, to look at the things that we've done in our life that can give us evidence that we are able to do things and two, be able to look at things that we didn't quite get right, so that tells us what to do differently moving forward.
Then number five, to be able to have a high level of Personal Power, we need to learn to speak your truth assertively. Not aggressively, assertively. When we know our priorities, when we know what's important to us, when we set boundaries around those things, we're able to then speak that to others with conviction. And if they ask us to do something that's outside that we can go, “You know what? No.” Or we can say, "Hey, I'd love to do that. I just need to get some more information first before I make a decision.”
Or if somebody is treating us in a way that's not within our priorities and our boundaries to be able to go, "Hey, when you do that, it makes me feel this way and if you continue to do that, I'm going to do this." So, speaking your truth assertively is going to allow you to navigate your life with a lot more happiness and fun and you're going to be able to overcome roadblocks and continue to build up your identity and your Personal Power.
So Personal Power, and you can probably tell by how excited I am going through this this week, is the number one competency of Emotional Intelligence that it underpins all the other 25 that I work with when I'm working with people. And it's a part of the Self-Awareness quadrant where we've got Emotional Self-Awareness, Accurate Self-Assessment and Personal Power. If you're interested in developing your Personal Power, the online course that I've just put together takes you through exercises to do all those five things that we just talked about and gives you support and coaching so that you can get there.
So, that's it from me this week. What I'm going to do next week and beyond is I'm going to pull out elements of that overview that I just gave you and we'll go deeper on some of those things so that you can develop a strong sense of self-worth, that you can feel good about yourself. Be confident in your ability and navigate through this pandemic and beyond with a high sense of Personal Power. I'll see you next week.
Are you someone who's reflective and open to candid feedback or do you tend to have a lot of blind spots?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around going beyond COVID-19 and developing our Emotional Intelligence by talking about the critical competency of Accurate Self-Assessment.
I know myself in my own life, particularly in my military and in my corporate career, I found it challenging to listen to feedback. I very much resisted feedback and a lot of times that was because the feedback actually lined up with what I was thinking about myself anyway. And it's something that I didn't want to face up to.
You see, feedback, if it's taken and you do something with it, it means that you've got to move forward. It means that you have to put some stuff down and you have to, now that you've got rid of that baggage, lead those excuses behind and do something. I'm not sure whether you are someone that likes feedback and quite often people will say they do until you start giving them some. But getting feedback from situations around us and from other people is critically important if we're going to be emotionally intelligent.
We all have blind spots, things that we can't see or in some cases won't see that are holding us back from being who we need to be to get the results that we want to have. Whether that is in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic or at any part of our life. We can also become very competitive sometimes. This is also a roadblock to being able to navigate and be emotionally intelligent when we're over-competitive with others. Where we feel that if we get any feedback or if we stop and reflect, then we may not be where we think we are or want to be and everything is a competition with people.
We have that one-upmanship going all the time. I see that quite often when I'm looking at comments on social media or on people's blogs or whatever, where someone will be talking about something, but then someone will jump in on the comments and they will one up them by going, "Oh yeah, this happened to me." So instead of contributing to the conversation that was being had by the person who put the post up, they take it down another tangent.
And here's the problem with all this. We become unteachable and stagnant. I believe that you're either green and growing or you're ripe and rotting. So if we're going to be able to accurately assess our strengths and our limitations so that we can up-skill where we need to and leverage the strengths that we have, we need to get feedback. We need to seek help from others.
Now, the first thing we need to understand is that getting help from others is a strength, not a weakness. When we ask for help, when we ask for people's ideas, their perception, it tells them that we're interested in what they've got to say and it tells them that we are human, we are real, that we make mistakes just like they do and therefore they can help and be a part of our learning journey.
It's all about incremental growth. So, it's like a plant when it first enters the ground as a seed and it's in that good soil and it's watered and it seems to take a little bit of time, but then it pops up. But then we keep watering it, we keep having the sun on it, we keep nurturing it and it grows a little bit more and then it grows a little bit more and then it grows a little bit more. I'm not sure if you've heard of the story of the bamboo tree, but it takes forever, years to come up out of the ground and then it shoots up many, many, many feet in the air once it's done that.
So as we become okay with getting feedback, we can be secure in that and know that not everyone's out to get us. It's not a competition. We don't need to be better than anyone else. It's just about where we're at in our journey. We can then be a lot more collaborative and we can work with others and our relationships grow and it's a lot more fun. And the key to this is continuous improvement. As I said, we're not in a race, it's not a competition with others. And it's been said many times, and I agree with this, that all I want to do is be a little different to the version of me yesterday.
So whatever I learned from the feedback that was coming in from my results, from what was happening around me or from others means that I can just take another step towards the person that I want to be. The key to getting to that point is the competency of Emotional Intelligence called Accurate Self-Assessment. And what I want to do is just unpack this week, what this is and why it's so important.
Accurate Self-Assessment is knowing your strengths and your limitations. It's knowing what you're good at, what is your genius and what needs some work. When we are accurately assessing, we have a great start point. There's been many times in my life where I've pretended, that old saying of “fake it till you make it” is not something that I would recommend. It's about being accurate to go, "You know what? This is where I'm at and therefore I need to grow in this area", rather than go, "No, no, no. I'm further down the track than I really am", and then put yourself under a lot of pressure and expectation to be better sooner. So, let me just unpack some key principles around this that will help you to be more accurate in your assessment.
The first one I've talked a bit about already and that is asking is a strength. A lot of people feel that if they ask others for help or they ask others' opinion that they're going to get it. And if they ask people, then they're saying, "I'm less than, I need you", and it's not the case. It's a strength to go, "Hey, I'm teachable, I'm humble, I'm really, really good at this stuff, but I need some help here".
For me, I need a lot of help around things like getting these videos and podcasts up to you. I am okay at getting in front of the camera and I'm getting better with that all the time as I learn and I grow and get feedback and I ask for help from other people, but I've got a team of people behind me who put this all together and do the technical stuff and I ask for their help so that they can get this information out to you. So, that's the first thing.
The second area is to be open to insights. Be open to what you might discover if you are looking for feedback. If you are looking for signs, signals, clues, evidence to say, "Hey, this is what you're good at, this is what you could work on". So, being open to that needs a belief structure that says it's okay not to be perfect. It's okay not to seek approval from others. And next week, we're going to be talking about the competency of Personal Power. And that's where we really are going to work on those beliefs. However, right now I want you to understand that when you are open to seeing what might be holding you back, then those things will appear and they will illuminate for you the next part of your journey.
The third one is that it needs to be a defensive-free zone. So when we're looking for feedback from what's around us or from other people, we need to do it in a way that we're not concerned about what we're hearing. We're not needing to be defensive. A lot of times people go, "Yeah, I love asking for feedback. I love people giving me feedback.", until you give them some, and then as soon as you start giving them feedback, they go "Hang on" and they're defensive. So to do this, we need to operate from our logical brain. We need to realise that feedback is just collecting information rather than allowing it to be down in the emotional brain where we feel a certain way because they've said that about us.
The other thing is that we need to realise that what other people tell us is their perception of reality. So when I'm working with individuals or with organisations, teams, to teach them how to get feedback in a manner that's going to be good for you and for the people that you're asking, we go through a process where we ask for the feedback first and then we actually listen and we listen in a way that is non-defensive. It's, “Yeah, come on. Let me just get this information from you so that I can process it in my logical brain.“
The next point is that getting feedback is a forward-focused analysis. So, what we're doing is getting feedback that's going to help us on the journey ahead rather than getting feedback and then letting it take you back into past failures, past memories, past beliefs, and give you further evidence that you're exactly the person who you feel you are.
You can see my demeanor drop as I did that and I did it on purpose because we dropped down into the emotion of it, but feedback is for two reasons. One is so that we can celebrate the strengths and the wins and we can take learnings from those and use going forward. It's also to work out what we're not quite getting right. What could have some improvement, what not to do in the future, what to do more of so that we can then once again, as we're going forward, we can use those lessons.
And the last point that I want to get across to us is that it's all about being a lifetime learner. It's all about, as I said before, you're either green and growing or you're ripe and rotting. It's all about being a lifetime learner that says, “I am humble, I am teachable, I am not perfect, and that is never going to be the goal.” There are people that know stuff that I don't and there are things that I know that others don't and we and they may not need to know, but I'm going to learn consistently throughout my life.
And the key for that working for me is when I realised that I am best to be a just in time learner rather than a just in case learner. So it's not about just putting heaps of information in there, it's about what do I need to know right now for the next part of my journey.
So, there's some principles that'll help us to be more accurate in our assessment of our ability. See, people who are reflective and open to candid feedback, develop an inner awareness of their strengths and their limitations. So, they take on things that they are confident about and they get support and help within their limitations.
A great tool to help you to work out your strengths and your limitations is the Johari window. If you haven't heard of the Johari window, just Google it. And you'll see that it about the fact that there are things that we see about ourselves that others don't, but there's also things that others see that we don't, and they're our blind spots. And then there's also things down in the subconscious that come up at the most inopportune times usually that we might need a coach to bring up and to work on and hopefully I can be that for you and help you as we're going through this.
Accurate Self-Assessment is a critical competency of Self-Awareness. Self-Awareness is the first quadrant of Social and Emotional Intelligence. I'm really excited right now in this time of COVID-19 to have invested a lot of time in the studio and put together an online course that helps you to become more self-aware and work on these competencies that we're talking about and in a way that gives you exercises and activities so that you can then work on those, building those muscles of Emotional Intelligence rather than just get the information.
If you're interested in knowing about that, there's links here and just follow what we're doing. Emotional Intelligence is one of the critical keys of being able to navigate COVID-19 in a way where we can stay in the logical brain, where we can control our thoughts, where we can recognise when we are catastrophising or when we are thinking, saying or doing things that are not going to give us the results that we want.
So, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue our journey through the Self-Awareness quadrant of Emotional Intelligence by starting a conversation around what I believe the most critical component of Emotional Intelligence, and that is Personal Power. I'll see you then.
Knowing which emotions you are feeling in the moment and why is the first step in being able to express them appropriately. Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, we want to start our journey in the competencies of Emotional Intelligence in the area of self-awareness by looking at the first competency, Emotional Self-Awareness
You see, many of us suffer from emotional blindness. It's like we’re walking on a wet floor with one of those signs that says that it's slippery. Someone's just mopped it or whatever it is, and we didn't see the sign. And being emotionally blind can create us to slip and fall. We have fluctuating feelings that like being on a roller coaster, we're up and we're down and inappropriate reactions to what we're feeling. After a period of time, that's pretty draining and we feel like we're running on empty. But it doesn't have to be that way.
When we develop our Emotional Self-Awareness, we can get clarity around which emotion we're feeling in that moment and what it's telling us. We can go into emotional flow where we feel it, we pass it through the logical brain, and we respond in a measured way. And that gives us a position of balanced empowerment where we're listening to our gut, we're listening to our heart, we're listening to the way that we feel and then we're processing it in a logical way. And to do that, we have to develop Emotional Self-Awareness.
Emotional Self-Awareness is recognising your emotions and the effects that they're having. The effects that they're having on your thinking, on your self-talk, on your behaviour. So, let's have a look at five key ideas that we need to understand around this before we get in, roll up our sleeves and develop some Emotional Self-Awareness.
Right here, right now, whether you're listening to this on the podcast, whether you're watching it on my YouTube channel, whether it's on my website, in my blog, right here, right now, you can come with me on this quick journey and develop a skill around your Emotional Self-Awareness.
So, the first thing is that we need to expand our emotional vocabulary. There are over 2000 words in the English dictionary alone that describe an emotion or emotions that we could be going through in any moment, and we use about six to 10. We’re either happy or we’re sad. We’re frustrated, we’re angry, we’re fearful, whatever it is for you.
So, the first thing we've got to do is recognise that before we can manage an emotion, we need to make sure we know which emotion we're going through. So, managing anger is different to managing confusion or frustration or disappointment. So, we need to expand our vocabulary around the emotions that we could be going through. The next thing is that we need to make a connection between what we are thinking, what we're feeling and what we're doing. And when we make that connection, we are able then to go, “Hey, is that doing? Is that behaviour bringing me the results I want?” And if the answer is no, then we're able to regulate that emotion in a different way.
The third thing is we need to listen to our body. Our body will tell us in physical ways when we are experiencing certain emotions. It's like when I'm getting frustrated, I tense up. If I were to be getting angry, the back of my neck feels a little bit hot. If I'm feeling fearful or scared, I've got this empty, funny feeling in my stomach and you know that you have those physiological things happening in your body at the same time as well, depending on what the emotion is. So, we've got to learn to listen to our body. So, it's not just about making a guess, “I'm going through this emotion.” We can actually pinpoint and know which emotion we're going through.
The next thing is to recognise patterns. So if regularly we experience this emotion around this type of circumstance that creates that type of behaviour, that's a pattern, when those patterns can become ingrained in our neural pathways. So, we need to understand when those patterns are taking place. So, that'll give us a lot more information and data that we can play with and tweak and adjust to create a different behaviour.
And number five is we need to go deeper for clarity. So what I'm saying there, instead of just recognising the emotion and seeing it at a surface level, we need to be able to ask ourselves a series of questions that we'll go deeper into giving us clarity around why that makes me behave that way, why that makes you do the things that you do, why that creates that reaction. So, there's five key things that we need to understand when we are developing and building our Emotional Self-Awareness.
So, let's roll up our sleeves right now and I want to give you an exercise that you can do that will help you to go through those five principles we just talked about and become more emotionally aware. Social and Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be aware of our own emotions and the emotions of others in the moment and then to use that information to manage yourself and manage your relationships.
So, step one is about being aware. So, one of the exercises that I take clients through, and we will have this also in the course that we're currently developing, is an exercise where you do a timeline. The key element of this exercise, the key outcome is to create a regular pattern where you stop in the moment at certain parts of your day and ask yourself, “What is the emotion I'm going through right now?”
Now, I don't know about you, but no one ever taught me to do that. So, step one is label the emotion. So if I just react or I, on the fly, just keep going with it without actually going, “Well, hang on a sec. What is the emotion I'm going through right now?”
Now, you'll remember from last week and probably the week before, it might've been, that I taught you how asking “what” questions will bring a logical answer. It'll light up the neocortex instead of getting into too much more of the emotion and going down into it. So, what is the emotion I'm going through right now? Now in this exercise for the moment, let's put aside worrying about or considering why I'm going through it. We just want to identify the emotion.
Now, the thing to understand here is we can be going through more than one emotion in any given moment. And paradoxically we could even be going through the negative and positive emotion around the same thing.
So, I might have a friend who has passed and they've been really, really sick and in pain and I might feel sad that I've lost my friend. I feel sad that they've left their wife or their children or whatever that situation is behind. But I also feel happy and joyful around the fact that they no longer in pain, that they've gone to a better place and they're no longer experiencing what they went through in the last stages of their life. So, you can be going through just like me, more than one emotion at any given time.
So to start us off, let's just consider one. So, what you can do is start when you first wake up in the morning. So when you wake up, instead of reaching for your phone, reach for a signal and go, “What is the emotion I'm going through right now?”
Then when you're having your breakfast, what's the emotion I'm going through right now? When you jump in your car, if you're still working away from home or if you do the commute from the kitchen to your office like me, what's the emotion that I'm going through? What's the emotion you're going through mid-morning, lunchtime, mid-afternoon? When you first get home, after dinner, when you're getting ready for bed.
So, using those particular milestones in your day, just stop. Ask yourself the question: What is the emotion I'm going through right now? When you do that, what I want you to do, if you want to go deeper on that, is if for example, you used an emotional, you came up with emotion like I feel good or I feel okay or I feel tired, which is more a physical state or I feel hungry. I want to challenge you to go a little bit deeper and go, “Okay, yeah, I'm feeling hunger pains, but how do I really feel? How does that make me feel?”
So, the first step is to recognise the emotion that you're going through in the moment. And that exercise will then help you to build that vocabulary and recognise in the moment the emotion you're going through so you can then regulate the correct one.
The second thing we can do when we're recognising emotion is, as I talked about before, is we can go, “Well, how do I know that I'm going through that emotion? How do I feel physically? What sort of self-talk is going on when I experienced that emotion?” And stopping and recognising those things and reconciling that will help you when you go through those emotions. So, why don't we want to do all that?
Well, here's the key. What I love to help people to do is instead of waiting until we get to an emotion which is really strong and it's ingrained in a pattern of behaviour that is unresourceful like anger, we want to be able to recognise the pattern of which emotions I normally go through on the way to anger. So, building your emotional vocabulary and your Emotional Self-Awareness will help you to be able to regulate the emotion in the moment.
Well, that's it for me for this week. Join us next week where we'll have a look at the second competency in the area of self-awareness, Accurate Self-Assessment. I'll see you then.
Do you have total clarity around the emotions that you're feeling in the moment and why or are you confused and not sure why you're feeling that way? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation about going beyond COVID-19 by going a little bit more in depth around the topic of Emotional Intelligence.
Right now, there are a lot of emotions that people are experiencing and they're experiencing those emotions in an uncertain environment. As we talked about last week, the way that the brain works without emotions is that it can trap our thinking down in the emotional brain, the limbic brain, and it can stop us from making good decisions up in the prefrontal cortex, in the logical brain.
When we're experiencing emotions and we're not sure which emotions we're experiencing, let alone why we're experiencing them, it can create a feeling of overwhelm. So, what I want to do today and continuing on next week is I want to go into this topic of Emotional Intelligence.
Just recently, I was blessed to be named the Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year, and I get to travel the world and work with people around developing their Emotional Intelligence. The reason why I'm so excited about that topic is for most of my life, I didn't even know what Emotional Intelligence was, let alone have the skills, the competencies that come in that area.
As I developed in my own life, in my own career, I saw the need to develop these skills. And right here, right now, being able to identify what's going on in the moment, take those thoughts captive, bring it back to logic so that we can make great decisions and remove ourselves and move forward from fear and anxiety into faith and certainty. I'm going to teach you about emotional self-awareness.
Here's some of the problems that we experience on a daily basis. The first thing is that we have blind spots. Have you ever been in a car and all of a sudden a motorbike or another vehicle just whooshed past you and you thought, "Where did that come from?" It came out of your blind spot. You weren't able to see it. And when that happens with emotions, it can give us that same fright and that same feeling of, "What's going on?”
And not knowing what's going on in the emotion in the moment is like navigating in the dark. It creates challenges of collision and conflict. It's all about not seeing the signs. It's not seeing the cues and emotions are signals to let us know that something's going on. By the way, emotions last for only a small period of time. What we make of that emotion, what we make it mean, what we do from that emotion is what carries it on and whether it creates resourceful or unresourceful behaviour, but it doesn't have to be that way.
When we develop our Emotional Intelligence, we see the signs and we understand them and we can make adjustments and it gives us a start point to know where to go. It's like having a roadmap to follow. It's like having our nav in our car and maps on our phone that says, "Go up here." "Turn left." "Go here." "Do that." So, it takes the emotional and puts it into the logical and allows us to navigate with confidence, whether it's through a pandemic or any part of our life. To do that, we need to develop our self-awareness competencies.
Now, self-awareness is the first quadrant of Emotional Intelligence and indeed the work I do is around Social and Emotional Intelligence. So, we've got self-awareness, we've got self-management, and then we've got social awareness and relationship management. So today, I just want to introduce us to the topic of self-awareness. Let's just talk about some key ideas and key principles around self-awareness before we get into how to build it.
So, the first thing to understand is the diagnosis is critical. Many years ago now, about seven, eight years ago now, I lost this thumb to a melanoma cancer. Before they could come up with that diagnosis, I had to get them to have a look and to go through a process and do a biopsy and all those things. And then I got to the realisation that if they didn't remove the cancer and sought out lymph nodes, those sort of things, I was going to die.
So, diagnosis was critical before they could bring the solution and it's the same with our emotions. We've got to be able to in the moment go, "Hey, what's going on right now in my emotions?"
The second thing to understand is it's good for you and it's good for others. Being emotionally aware, knowing our blind spots, being able to navigate our emotions in a healthy way is a little bit like the spoonful of Cod liver oil that my mum gave me as a child. Apparently, this stuff was great for gut health and I had to take this and let me tell you, it didn't taste really good.
And sometimes, the self-awareness feels like that. We know it's going to do us good, but it might not taste good because we’re going to have to realise things about ourselves that might be a little bit uncomfortable because it goes against the normal.
The third key thing is that we need to look for strengths. We need to look at, "Well, what am I already good at?" What is it that I can identify in my emotions and that I'm able to navigate through instead of just looking at it as an exercise of going, "Oh, let's find out what's wrong with me"? Because there's nothing wrong with you. Emotions are a good thing. Learning to navigate them is a skill, something that can be learned.
The fourth thing is we need to ask others for help sometimes. We need to be able to get other people's opinions because if you've ever heard of the Johari window, there's things that we know about ourselves and there's things that others know about us. And sometimes we don't know what they know. We don't see what they see or we choose not to see it. So, we get people involved in helping us with that.
And the fifth principle in anything that I teach and in particular in this area is awareness by itself is of no value. We need to press the start button, we need to use that information and we need to use whatever that signal is telling us to move forward in a logical, resourceful way. So when we teach and we work in the area of Social + Emotional Intelligence and in the self-awareness quadrant, we deal with three competencies: emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment and personal power. And those three competencies form a foundation of Emotional Intelligence.
So over the next few weeks, what I'm going to do is I'm going to step you through and give you some tips on how to build each of those competencies. And if you're serious about this and you want to be able to regulate your emotions in a healthy way, make sure you come on the journey.
My team and I are working really hard right now in this COVID-19 period to create something that is of great value to the marketplace. And what I do hasn't changed, but how I do it has. And I'm developing an Emotional Intelligence online master class series right now and the first part of that will be a complete course around developing the competencies of self-awareness.
So if that's something that you're interested in, make sure that you follow the journey and we'll tell you when that's ready. But right now, I just want to keep adding value and keep giving you these tips and I'd love to see your questions. I'd love to see you come back and tell me your insights, what was most valuable to you.
And I will take us on a logical sequential journey over the next few weeks and together we will get control of our emotional responses and we will be able to navigate beyond COVID-19. Going from feelings of fear to feelings of faith, going from uncertainty to clarity, and being able to in the moment recognise the emotion we're going through, allow that to happen and then regulate our response.
Well, that's it from me for this week. Join me again next week when we will go into the first competency, and that is emotional self-awareness where I will teach you how to know in the moment, how to recognise in the moment which emotion you're going through so that you can then regulate the correct emotion. I'll see you then.
Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty person? Do you tend to look at the brighter side of life or do you talk yourself into the worst case scenario?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around going beyond COVID-19 by controlling our emotions by developing our emotional intelligence.
We are emotional beings. We respond to things emotionally. We filter what's going on through our emotional brain. We talked about that last week where our brain has the limbic system and the logical brain and the neocortex. In particular, we talked about the prefrontal cortex, the executive command center in our brain where we make good, healthy, creative decisions and regulate our emotions. We talked about how lighting up and bringing focus to that area of the brain will help us to find creative solutions for whatever it is that we need to navigate during this unprecedented time of COVID-19.
So today, I want to give you another strategy that you can implement in whatever it is that you're wanting to navigate on that will help you to make better decisions and to come through and go beyond COVID-19.
Now, this is something that I do a lot of work in helping people to be more resilient and resilience is one of the 10 competencies in the self-management area of emotional intelligence. So, this process will able you to create more accurate thinking regarding something that's going on for you and that's going to develop your personal resilience. In particular, the area that I'm really wanting to help with here is our mental resilience because we are in a situation, an environment right now, where I'm seeing lots of people who, because they're locked away and they're in a different environment or whatever it is, they're separated socially from their friends, their loved ones. It's really, really important that we get on top of this and we protect our mind.
Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to give us some more tips and strategies to be able to do that. I also want to give you the opportunity to keep the conversation going with me. If you do need to connect and I can answer a question for you, then please do so. Asking for help is a strength and we need to be there for each other right now and I want to be there for you.
So, I've got a scenario going on. Let's say for example, that you're someone like me who's in business and because of the pandemic, lots of things are changing. Clients are operating out of fear instead of operating out of faith. So, they're making decisions that create a different scenario to my revenue, to the work that I'm doing. I'm not able to travel, I'm not able to do things the way I normally do them. So, that creates uncertainty and when unchecked can very quickly drop down into fear and anxiety and emotions that are going to keep me stuck and not allow me to move forward.
So, what I want to talk to us about today is putting everything in its right perspective. Now to do this, we need to be able to firstly avoid and limit the amount of consuming that we're doing that is negative. You can go on any social media, turn on any news program right now, and you can give yourself an unhealthy dose of negative as much as you can consume. And when you are consuming that, if you take whatever story that is and in your emotional memory, it links to something that you have doubt about, something that's strongly rooted in your emotions, then you can very quickly put yourself in that story and go, "Hey, that's going to happen to me".
So, what I want us to do is learn to put things in the right perspective. So, let me take you through a process that you can use.
So, the first thing is to ask yourself the question: What is the worst thing that can happen? So, take my scenario of clients leaving and looking for alternative ways of investing their money right now because of whatever they're allowing themselves to believe. So, here's the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen is that I go out of business. That's the worst thing that could happen. Now, we're going to be really careful here and it's vitally important that we look at things that we know to be true. The rest is guesswork.
The second thing that I want us to understand what that question is that it is a "what" question. "What is the worst thing that can happen?" So, it's asking our logical brain to come up with an answer rather than why is this happening, which we'll get down into the emotional brain.
So step one, question one: What is the worst thing that can happen? The next question we want to ask or what we want to do next is assess the probability of the worst case. How likely is that to happen? So, assessing and probability is once again a logical process. So for assessing that probability from our logical brain because we're lighting up that part of our brain, we're going to realise that it's not all that likely that it's going to happen, that I'm going to totally go out of business because I will look at it and go, "Well, Hey, Grant. You've got that going on. This is still continuing. You've pivoted here. You're doing a lot more online courses for people. You are working with companies and you have been for the last three or four weeks and you're doing calls on Zoom and all these things." So when I look at it logically, I can come up out of the emotion and go, "You know what? It's not 100% likely or it's not even 50% likely that's going to happen." So once again, I'm working on a logical process.
Then, and this is so vitally important, the next thing, part of the process is to ask another "what" question, and that is: What is one thing I can do to help stop the worst thing from happening? Now, there's two parts to that. Firstly, we're asking a "what" question. So, we're asking a logical question. The second thing is we're looking at one thing. One of the challenges when we are in a situation that we feel less than in control of than we would like to be is a thing called overwhelm. When we've got all these things going on in our brain and in our thoughts and in our self-talk, what we're doing here is not only are we coming up into the logical brain, we are focusing and narrowing in on one thing. So, we're removing the overwhelm. So, what's one thing that you can do to stop the worst thing from happening?
So me, in going through that process myself, I enabled myself to come up with one thing that I can do. The first thing was to make sure that I make contact with my clients. So, what's one thing that you can do now? What we want to do now is look at the other side of the equation. Flip the coin and go alternatively, and on top of that, what is the best thing that can happen? So, this is where we're allowing ourselves to be future thinking and once again, asking a "what" question. So, we're up in the logical brain.
What's the best thing that could happen? The best thing that could happen is that we ride this out and the world gets back to its new normal. In fact, by what I've created going through this process, by what you've shifted and pivoted to do, going through this process is actually more beneficial to what it is that you're doing in the world and to your business or whatever it is for you moving forward beyond COVID-19. Then we do the similar process again that we did on the other side of the equation and we go, "What's one thing that I can do to make the best thing happen?"
So once again, we're focusing in on one thing. This time though, we're on a different part of the equation. We're on the positive side.
Then once again, we can ask another "what" question, what is the most likely thing that will happen? What we will come up with in most cases when we are in the logical brain is somewhere between worst case and best case scenario. The reason we've been able to get there is that we've stayed in our logical brain and we've narrowed the focus. We've removed that overwhelm, we've shut off the noise, and that's allowed us to go from a consumer of all that to a creator of our next step.
So, the last question that we want to ask ourselves once we've gone through that process: What can I do to handle that most likely thing that's going to happen? So now, we're in solution mode. We're in creation mode still. We're in logical brain and go, "What's my next step?" What's something that I can do today that's going to move me towards being able to handle that situation?
So, it's all about putting it in perspective. It's all about being able to look at things, experience the emotion, but bring it back up into the logical brain, and that's called emotional intelligence. And I love the fact that I get to do this all around the world with people. Right now, I'm doing a lot of that online. So if you need some help with that, please reach out and I can help you to become more emotionally intelligent.
Well, that's it from me for another week. I really hope that this practical strategy will allow you to be more creative in your thinking, remove that overwhelm, and see your way through whatever it is that you're navigating right now. Next week, I want to continue the conversation by helping us to develop even more resilient mindsets. I'll see you then.
Do you find yourself feeling on top of things emotionally during this time of COVID-19 or do you find it difficult to regulate your emotional responses? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around going beyond COVID-19. One of the things that I'm finding in myself and in others, the many people I speak to is that there are two places that we can operate from. We talked about this last week.
The first place we can operate from is a position of fear where we're concerned and worried and anxious about what might happen in that unknown space, that place where we're not getting the certainty that we need. And then on the other hand, there's operating from a position of faith, faith in yourself, faith in the doctors, faith in the people leading you, faith in what it is that is true and logical and actually happening and faith in the fact that you will come out the other side, and in most cases, a lot better off in certain areas than you were before you went in. And these are two totally different places that we can come from.
Now within this as well, that creates a different kind of emotion, whether we're operating out of fear or whether we're operating out of faith. And learning how to regulate those emotional responses is the key to being able to stay on top, solution-focused, and go from being a consumer of all things that are creating anxiety and fear to a creator of what's going to take you through and beyond COVID-19.
Now, let me introduce you to my little friend here. It's called our brain and it's not actually my brain. Mine is there and it's working, but I want to give you a little bit of neuroscience 101 just to help us to understand how the brain works and how we can then adjust, tweak, change, what it is that we're currently doing to empower us to be more in control. So if we have a look at the brain and we pull it apart and we have one of the hemispheres of the brain, this is the left hemisphere and it is very similar and indeed identical and a lot of makeup to what's on the other side on the right.
And if we have a look at this here and I just get a little pointer to help me and we go into the bottom of the brain here, that's the brain stem and that connects to the spinal cord and messages are sent to and from the brain and that's connected to the nervous system and we don't need to go too deep into there right now. And then as we go deep into the center of the brain, right in the deep center of the brain is what's known as the limbic brain, and this is where a lot of the information around fear and aggression and anxiety comes from.
Now, I just want to keep this at a very basic level so it's easier for me to explain and for you to understand. And then the white section here is the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres of the brain together and allows information to pass, neuropathways to pass between both hemispheres of the brain.
And then on the outside of the brain, we got the neocortex and the neocortex is a thin layer of grey matter on the outside of the brain. And that in particular, when we're talking about the front of the brain, the prefrontal cortex is where a lot of the logical, creative decision-making happens and emotional regulation. Now, the brain is very powerful in the way that it operates and we can learn how to use the brain to either help us or hinder us. And a lot of times in our reaction to what's going on around us, we can use it and it hinders us.
So, what I want to do very quickly is just teach you a simple process for you to be able to come up out of the emotion of a situation and get back into the logical brain, get back into the part of the brain where you're going to be able to make a logical decision.
Now, our brain works in conjunction with our heart and our gut. There's information that passes backwards and forwards and some of it is very visceral and a lot of it's very emotional charged and in our brain, in the limbic system, we've got the hippocampus where our longterm and memory's stored and a lot of those memories, if they are stored there or placed there or experienced in a very emotionally charged way, they are deep, ingrained memories. And also in the limbic brain, we've got the amygdala and there's two of them, one on each hemisphere of the brain, and it's a little thermostat that's there to let us know when there's a danger.
So, what happens is all the data comes into the brain, all the sensory data comes into the brain via the thalamus and that's in the limbic brain. And what it does, it distributes that information to the limbic brain, the emotional brain, and to the cortex, the logical brain at the same time.
Now, the amygdala, it's job is to do a threat assessment. And in doing that threat assessment, if it determines based on an emotional memory on a past experience that there's something that we need to be concerned about, then what it does, it goes, "Warning. Warning. Danger, Will Robinson." And it actually cuts off all the slow logical thinking going to the neocortex. So, what ends up happening is we end up having an emotional reaction to what's going on rather than having a logical solution, a logical response. And that's just a little bit of neuroscience 101 to help you to understand.
So, how do we use that during this COVID-19 situation? So, here is a couple of little tips. So firstly, as I said, what we want to do is we want to recognise when we are going into the emotion of it, we're going down into that limbic brain and we want to be able to recognise that so that we can then shift it and get back to the prefrontal cortex and make a logical decision. And over the next few weeks, I'm going to introduce some other strategies to help you with this. But today, I just want us to get a grounding and an understanding around that.
So, here's the thing in our brain, if we can get our brain to light up for the neuropathways to work in a certain part of our brain, that's where the energy flows and that's where the focus will be. So, a little tip that's helped me and I help my clients work with is to be very clear on the language that we use. So, what does that mean? Now, you've all heard about count to 10. Just count to 10 and relax and you'll be able to give yourself that space and come up with a solution in that instead of reacting.
So, let's talk about the science behind that in relation to what I've just talked about. So, a situation happens and we need to give ourselves that space so we don't react in a negative, unhealthy way, whether it be for us and or for those around us. Counting not only gives us the space, counting is a logical process. So, the part of the brain that is operated in counting is the neocortex. So, we're setting up the brain to operate and light up in that area.
The second thing that we can do is make sure that in these situations we ask ourselves "what" questions rather than asking ourselves "why" questions. Why is this happening? Why do I have to stay at home? Why are my clients leaving me? Why? Why? Whatever those whys are, you can see, and I did it on purpose, you can see I actually went down into the emotion of that. So if we're asking ourselves "why" questions, then we are going to be lighting up the limbic brain, the emotional brain.
So, let's ask ourselves "what" questions and allow that to light up the logical part of our brain. And then the neocortex in particular, the prefrontal cortex, the executive command center of the brain can actually come up with a solution to whatever the challenge is for you. This is all called emotional intelligence, and I do a lot of work all around the world helping people to become more emotionally intelligent. That simple process that I just took you through there, when I take people through that, and I know it's happening for you right now, it lights up and they go, "Oh, okay, that's why it happens."
So, whenever you're feeling like you're going down into the emotion of it and you're not able to bring yourself to get a solution and you start to experience even stronger and stronger emotions as you go down into it, what you can do is check yourself and go, "Let's get back up into the logical brain." And as I said, over the next few weeks, I'm going to give you some more processes that will help you to do that. So, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week when together, we navigate this pandemic and we go beyond COVID-19 by becoming more emotionally intelligent. I'll see you then.
In this unprecedented time of uncertainty, are you a consumer of everything that's going on or are you a creator? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to start a conversation with you around your response to COVID-19. There's no doubt right around the world, we are all facing this pandemic in our own way. There are things that have happened in my life, in my business, in my family, which weren't there a few weeks ago, a month or so ago.
So as we've come out of talking about productivity and talking about our priority management, our environment management and our energy management, we're all finding that those three things have changed quite a bit. Things that we took for granted before are now priority. Our environment is one of lockdown of borders and boundaries and change. And our energy is being consumed, particularly our mental energy by fear, by frustration, by uncertainty.
So, what I want to do is I want to start having a chat over the next few weeks and be here to answer questions and for us to move from a mindset of fear to a mindset of faith, to move from being a consumer to being a creator. Now, I have no doubt in my mind, in my heart that we will get through this, that COVID-19, the Coronavirus is something that we are navigating and we will come out the other end and there'll be a lot of changes and there'll be a new normal and there'll be a lot of things that we used to do a certain way that we've found a new way to do.
So whilst on not in any way going to lessen what's happened and what continues to happen in people's lives and indeed the loss of life all around the world, what I'm going to do is help you to do what I've needed to do and that is to focus on what I can control and what I can control is what I allowed to go in and what I allowed to believe and what I allow myself to think about, to self-talk about, to dialogue with others about, and that's what I'm going to focus on. So, I haven't been given a spirit of fear. I've been given a spirit of faith, the spirit of a sound mind and so have you.
Using what I know around positive psychology, around neuroscience, and particularly in this instance around emotional intelligence, what I want to do over the next few weeks is help you to navigate being able to come out of the emotional brain and bring it back up into the logical brain so that instead of making fearful decisions, we're making faith-filled decisions.
So, what I'd love you to do is get involved in the conversation. I'd love you to throw some comments. I'd love you to send them in, if you like, to support@grantherbert.com, some questions, follow me on Instagram @grantrherbert, follow me in Facebook, wherever it is that we connect and ask your questions 'cause I want to make sure that I do what I do as a leader in this field around the world to help you to navigate to the other side of COVID-19.
Last night, I worked with a client in India, a hundred of their top leaders, and we're all connected using a Zoom call. I normally get on an aeroplane and fly over there and work with them. However, that's not available right now. So, I had to pivot to doing that in a different way and was it unusual? Yes, for them in particular. They're interacting with me and they've got to turn their cameras on. And people aren't used to working from home and they're not used to using things like Zoom.
So, they're not understanding that we could see everything that you're doing and all those things that are happening. So, it's a transition period. But what I helped them to do is I help them to understand that it's time to pivot. It's time to not only focus on survival, but to focus on the growth that will come on the other side of COVID-19.
So, step one is to take control on our thinking, to take control on what we allow our self-talk, our inner dialogue to rehearse and to be able to take those thoughts captive, which are fear-based, and to be able to bring up the thoughts of, "Hey, we're going to get through this because these are the things in my life that I've already gotten through." You've got your own story and I've got mine and there are many things that I've navigated in my life. Things that were life-threatening that I've come out this side of and that I've flourished from and I've grown from, and I know you've got the same things.
So, what we want to do is we want to be able to exercise that voice, that voice, that wants to help us to understand that we can, that voice of personal power that says, "Hey, you've got everything within you and around you for you to get through this. You can do this.", rather than that small voice that wants to hold you back, that's fearful, that's worried, that catastrophises and looks at the worst case scenario.
Now, I'm not in any way thinking that anyone's perfect at this and that's not the goal. I mean, I still have doubts. I still have things that crop up, but what am I able to do by exercising the strategies I'm going to work with you on over the next few weeks is I'm able to take that captive quickly. I'm able to flip from being down in the emotion, get back up into the logic and find and create a solution moving forward.
See, every single one of us need to create a new normal. Every single one of us need to create things, whether it's in our business, whether you're still at school, whether it's in your family life, whatever it is, you need to create a new way of doing things. Like for most of us working from home, being on lockdown, whatever it is that's going to teach us new skills.
Stay with me over the coming weeks. I'll do what I can to encourage you, to give you strategies, to give you the benefit of my experience and working with thousands of people all around the world just like you. So, make sure that you subscribe. If you haven't done that yet, go to my website, grantherbert.com and there's an opportunity to join the conversation.
So every week, we will send to you a copy of my video, whatever it is for you, and you can come on this journey with me. I just want to be a part of your support team. I want to just be there to be your big voice when you need some encouragement, when you need some support and some accountability.
Well, that's it from for this week. Join me again next week where we will continue this conversation and I will help you to develop new strategies so that you can go from operating out of fear to operating out of faith, where you can go from being a consumer to being a creator. I look forward to taking you on the journey. I'll see you then.
Do you feel fully charged when you get home, ready to give of yourself into the things that you want to do and who you want to be outside your work, your career, or are you tired and lack energy by lunchtime? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to finish our conversation around productivity by talking to you about the third area that we can manage and that's our energy.
So, we've already talked about priority management, we've talked about our environment management and those two things working well will also help us to manage our energy. Energy is something that we need to maintain. We need to keep ourselves at a state where we're actually able to perform. If we're tired, if we're feeling emotionally drained, physically drained, spiritually drained, whatever it is for you, then we're obviously not going to be able to give our best self.
So whilst there are three things that I said that we can manage, I believe that energy is the one that trumps the other two. Because when we're at a high level of energy, when we feel good in ourselves energetically, we're able to make sure that we stay focused on our priorities and we keep our environment in a way that it needs to be. So, protecting our energy is extremely important.
So, what I want to do is just give you a few things that you can change, that you can do differently, perhaps right now, that will help you to keep that energy level where it needs to be during the day and so that you've got some energy when you get home. I know before I used to do these things, I would get home and I was spent, I'd given everything that I had, the tank was empty and now I want to be a husband and be a father. My highest priorities, I've got nothing left to give. And I know that that hindered me being able to give the best version of myself to my family. And it wasn't until I realised this that I made the change.
So, figure right there before you change any of these things. Because by the way, you're doing okay as you are right now, things aren't as bad as we sometimes feel. However, to go to that next level, there needs to be either a big enough reward or enough pain to get off the nail and do something about it.
So, how do we protect our energy? Number one is that we need to make ourself our number one priority. I talked about this before and I'm not talking about from a selfish point of view where I go, "Ha! Who cares about anyone else? It's just all about me." No, what I'm talking about is flipping our mindset around that and going, "Hey, for me to be the leader, for me to be who I need to be for others, I need to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually and mentally have enough energy to do that, to sustain that. That's one of the reasons why I'm a sustainable performance coach and not a high performance coach alone. It's all about how do I sustain that.
So by putting self care in place, it enables a longer working day or a more productive working day full of energy whereby I can get more done and go home on time where I can get more done and go home early, whatever it is for you. So, making yourself the number one priority is the first thing. There's some great books out there like for example, Leaders Eat Last. I know from my own experience in my military career and my own upbringing that I actually subscribed to that as well.
That as a leader, "No, let's feed everyone else first" and that this is not what we're talking about here. So we're not talking about put me first at the detriment of others, we're saying get myself in the best position to serve others. So, it's a balance of serving others with self taken care of, fit your mask before assisting other clients. So, that's the first one.
The second thing is, and it's a part of that, is sleep. Sleep is a big one. The next one is nutrition. The next one is hydration. All these things that are part of self-care. It's about protecting what we allow to go in here. It's about protecting who we come in contact with. There are people who give us energy and there are people that suck our energy. Now, they said all these things that we can do to help us to be who we need to be so that we can do what we need to do. We can keep that energy up.
Another one for me is exercise every morning. My priority is movement, motivation and meditation. So, getting the body moving keeps energy and that's not just in the morning. A lot of times today in our world of global mobility of working virtually all these things, we sit a lot and apparently sitting is the new smoking. It's not good for us. So we need to be able to keep our energy up by changing our environment and moving.
A great mentor of mine, Taki Moore taught me this hack, this tip called 50/10 sprints. And I know he gave attribution to where he got it from. I can't remember that right now, but he's the one that I learned it from. And what that's about is being focused in an activity for 50 minutes, which is about the time that the brain can stay focused on that activity with no distractions, no open doors, nothing like that.
And then to do a 10 and in that 10, it's all about moving. It's all about hydrating. It's all about doing something different. And that could be checking in on one of your team or it could be answering some phone messages, but change the environment, move, hydrate, go to the bathroom, whatever you need to do. So, 50/10 sprint. That's just one thing that I helped the clients understand that I work with can get more energy into their day.
Another one is to look at your week and let's say you work a five day week. Well, instead of it being a five day week, let's look at it being 10 half-days and then making sure that in the middle of the day we have a break, we eat, we go for a walk, whatever it is, so that we've got as much energy in the afternoon as we had in the morning.
Another thing that we can do is to make sure that we get what we need to get done are the biggest priorities first in the morning. We also need to make sure that if there's stuff that we need to do that's creative, do that in the morning when we've got the most energy. So, there's just a few things that we can do and when I work with clients with this, there are days and days of activities that we do to help to keep that energy up. I just wanted to get you today to realise that your energy affects your productivity.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we jump in and we look at more things around us and who we are that are going to help us to perform and be who it is we need to be in every area of our life. I'll see you then.
Do you get done what you need to get done every day in an environment that's conducive to getting a lot done or is everything everywhere and it holds you back? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around productivity by talking to you about the second thing that we can control and that's our environment.
Your environment has a great deal to do with your output. If we've continually got distractions going on, if we've got nothing in place, if we lack discipline in the boundaries that we set around getting stuff done, then we're obviously not going to be as productive as we could. So, the first place that I believe we need to work on is the environment of our mind. The brain is a powerful tool. It keeps us alive. It creates a system whereby we can get stuff done. However, it's not an infinite resource. We need to look after our brain. We need to protect our brain. We need to feed our brain with the right things that are going to enable it to do its best job. We can have the best performance car in the world, but if we put a low-grade fuel in it, if we drive around with several things, towing along behind it, if we put it in the wrong gear at the wrong time or we labour it by not coming back a gear to go up a hill or whatever, the fact that it's a high-performance car goes out the window, it can only give what it gives in the best environment.
It's the same thing with the fuel that we put in it. If it's a high-performance car, it needs a high performance fuel, so these things are exactly the same for us and our brain. If we're carrying stuff around that we don't need to carry, if there's extra weight in our mind, if we are doing more than what we should be doing in that one moment of time, if we're dehydrating it for not putting in the good fuel, then it's going to create an environment that leads to overwhelm when overwhelm is the curse of productivity. Because what it says is that, "Alright, I might as well get nothing done" or, "I'll go and do this comfort activity or whatever because I just can't see that I'm going to get all this stuff done." Last week, I talked about getting rid of the to do list. That's old school teaching from years ago and whilst having a to do list, having things written down is better than having nothing, it can actually create that overwhelm because it's a list that says, "Oh my Lord, I need to get all these things done today." So, we set ourselves up with an environment of overwhelm.
The second place that we need to check in on our environment is our physical environment. What do we have that is consuming our bandwidth? What do we have that's getting our attention? What do we have that buzzes and beeps and pops up on our screen or whatever it is? Who do we allow to just walk into our office? All those things create brain switching where it means that we could be focused, which by the way is the best environment for productivity. We could be focused on something and then distracted and now we've got to come back and refocus and that doesn't happen instantaneously. So, we're not able to manage time. We talked about the fact we can manage our priorities and the next thing is we said is that we need to work on our environment. So, let me walk you through a few things that I do. By the way, I don't do them perfectly because I'm a human. There are times when I need to remind myself as I'm doing this for you, that my environment is not conducive to maximum productivity.
So for me, making sure that my workplace is uncluttered. You see people that will say that an untidy desk is the sign of genius. Well, I don't know whether that's true or not, but what I do know is if my desk is untidy and has different things all over it that can get in my field of view, then it's going to create an environment where I'm thinking about when I'm going to get that done. When I work with my clients one on one or in small groups, the first thing I helped them to do around this area is to get themselves a boss, get themselves someone who helps them and drip feeds what they need to get done to them during the day, during the week, during the month, whatever it is. So instead of having like I see all the time, piles upon piles of the next lot of work that I'm going to get through, one piece of work, focus, get it done, give that piece of work on, get a new piece of work, get it done.
So, productivity is a process. So, setting up a process of how we get it done is obviously the best thing that we can do. So, get rid of the clutter, get a system just as we chunk our calendar so that we know what priority we're working on, we need to chunk our environment and have it so that everything's easily accessible when we need it and out of the way when it's not. I remember years ago in my military career, I was a trainer in the military and we used to get assessed to make sure that our level of training was up where it needed to be and that's a good thing. And I remember something that I learned way back then is exactly what I'm talking about now.
If we were, for example, using a whiteboard or back then a blackboard or we were using an overhead projector and some of you might not even know what that is. We needed to write what we want on the board, speak about it, use it, and then get rid of it. And if we didn't do that, we would get marked down because it was distracting. Because whilst we were talking about the next point or whatever it was, people were still focused on that. And that's exactly what we're doing in our environment. And the third area that we need to manage in our environment is our availability. We need to set boundaries around who, how, and when people can come into our space, capable people can encroach on our environment. A lot of times I see companies that have, we've got an open door policy and that's great in its core reasoning, but it's outworking is a major nightmare for effective productivity. "You can come into my door anytime you like, I'm available." Yeah, that's great. That's not what your people need. What your people need is certainty that they're going to be able to get their answers. So instead of being reactive, what I like to do with my team and I teach my clients to do the same, is to be proactive in setting up when and how my team can get me.
So for example, instead of someone just coming to the door and going, "Hey, you've got a second?" and me going, "Yes, fine, come on in and then sit down", which is, by the way, mistake number one. Then what I can do is let my team know that, "Hey, right now my door's closed and that means I'm focused on something." And then later on when my door's open, I've got that as a proactive schedule time that people know they can come and get their answers. So instead of every time they need an answer coming to me, they wait until that space and then they come and get all their answers. Because here's the thing, just like you, your people want to get the answer, get that fixed and move on. Here's the challenge. If as the leader, you are the only one that doesn't have that luxury, then you're not able to lead effectively.
So, what have we talked about today? We've talked about your environment. It's not about time management, it's about priority management. And as we now know, it's about environment management. We talked about the three areas of environment management that I've found work really well. One is to control and manage the environment of our mind. The second is our physical environment, and the third is the environment of availability. Put those three things together, start changing how you do things, and I guarantee you'll get more done in your day. Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we talk about the third element in productivity that we can manage and that's our energy. I'll see you then.
Do you continually get the things done that you want to get done or do you feel like you're always operating out of what other people want you to do?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to have a conversation with you around your priorities.
So, last week we kicked off this conversation by talking about the fact that there's no such thing as time management. We're not able to manage time, there's 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. And that's not up to me or to you to change. What we can change though are three key elements and that is our priority management, our environment management, and our energy management. So this week, I want to go a little bit deeper and talk about priority management.
So if I was to drop in right now and have a conversation with you and look at your calendar, would I have a clear picture and understanding of what your priorities are? A number of weeks ago when we were talking about setting boundaries around our priorities and what was most important to us and what our values were, we looked at the fact that what we invest our time in as well as our money and other things is a clear indicator of what's really important to us. And the reason why in productivity we need to get this priority thing right is that when we are working outside our priorities, not only aren't we going to be getting enough done, we're going to feel like an impostor. We're going to feel inauthentic, incongruent because we're not actually giving focus to those things that we say and we truly believe are most important to us.
So, what I want to do is just give you a few tips, a few hacks, a few things that I've learned to do from great mentors over the years that I've implemented in my own life to help me to get back and stay on track.
One of the things that I love to do is in my calendar, by the way, I now live by a calendar. If you don't, then it'd be a great place to start, a place to actually do a time and space exercise and work out where you are investing your time. A lot of people say, "I don't have enough time." Yes you do. It's just getting on top of and being in control of, being the orchestrator of where we use that time. In my calendar, one of the things that I've learned to do, and I love to do is to colour code. So if you will look in my calendar right now, you would see that there will be various colours in there. And those colours are royal blue. Anything to do with my family there. They're a green. Anything to do with my health and vitality. They're a blue, the same as my logo. If it's to do with what I'm doing right now, working in my Grant Herbert business. Orange, if I'm working in my People Builders company, because that's the corporate colour for People Builders. There's a particular shade of dark gray, that's anything to do with travel, anything to do with personal development. And then there's a shade of red, which is to do with the administrative tasks that I need to do, et cetera.
Why is this important? See, when I look at my calendar, I have a clear visual represent representation of whether or not I'm working in my values, in my priorities. Those ones that are true to me. So as an example, I do a lot of travel. So if I were to look at my calendar in a week, when I'm traveling overseas, then obviously there's not going to be as much of the royal blue because I'm not there. So, what I can then do is I can make sure that when I am home that I counter that by having more blue. So, it's a visual representation where I can look at it and go, "Grant, you need to change." Or, "Hey, things are on track." If it's in terms of my business, if there's no orange or blue in there, it means I'm not actually doing anything that's going to bring in work and bring in income in our business.If there's not enough green, then I'm going to fall off the perch and I'm not going to be able to do that stuff.
Colour coding and blocking out particular time in your calendar for your priorities is number one. And it's really helped me.
So, how do we do that? So the first thing, if we step right back to weeks and weeks ago, we have to know what our priorities are. Once we know what our priorities are, we need to commit to them. We need to go through the exercise of saying, "When I say yes to this, I'm saying no to that. And when I say no to that, I'm saying yes to this, which is my priorities." And if that's not familiar to you, you go back and have a look at that episode and that will help you. So, here's where the priorities come in with the calendar. So, the first thing that goes in my calendar every year, every month, every week, are the green, health and vitality and "me time" blocks because I understand that I need to be my number one priority so that I can serve all the other priorities in my life.
Next, I'd put in the royal blue, so every day in my calendar it starts with a block of green time followed by a block of blue time. Now when I'm home, that's having breakfast and quality time at the breakfast table with my wife and my kids. When I'm away, it's depending on the time zone, it's a Facebook live or it's an interaction over text or whatever it is that we have to use at that time. In the middle of my day, there's always a green section that says to have some lunch so that I replenish my energy ready for the afternoon and then same time every day, I have some "me time" at the end of the day so that I can reflect, I can refocus, I can recharge and there's also some more family time as well. So, I put all that in there first and then that tells me that my number one priority, that is me and my family, are covered.
When my health and my vitality and my interaction with the people - those who are most important to me - is covered and that then tells me that I have space available or bandwidth available to do and be with all the other people that I need to be in my life. And then I put those in there and as we get to the end of this topic in a few weeks time, I'll give you some more around how you can actually do that and you can chunk in time and you can create in your mind a sense that you have more time than you really think you do. Instead of feeling overwhelmed all the time and, "I don't have enough time, I can't get it all done."
So, that's the first thing is priority management. Now, that’s the first part of the equation. The second part of the equation is to be able to stick to that and be able to go when someone says, "Hey, I want to fill this time", you can say, "Sorry, that's already taken by my family" or whatever it is.
Obviously you don't need to tell people that, but sticking to your priorities is vitally important. I remember years ago, there used to be an ad on television and it was for lamb and here in Australia, I remember my childhood, we used to have a lamb roast every Sunday and it was fantastic. So, this young lady, on this television ad, got a phone call from a radio station and she was told that she had won dinner with none other than Tom Cruise -And back then, Tom Cruise was a big deal for young ladies- and she comes straight up and says, "Oh, sorry. I can't make it. My mom's cooking a lamb roast."
And that's how we need to be with our priorities no matter what the other opportunities, the other shiny things, the other comfort activities, whatever they are that come up, we are able to filter them through our true priorities and say, "Hey, I'm sorry about that. My mom's cooking a lamb roast."
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we look at the second element of productivity, and that is environment management. I'll see you then.
And, for those of you who want to go deeper in their journey why don’t you join me in my monthly coaching sessions. So go and take a look at grantherbert.com/monthly and you can see how you can join us on that.
Do you find that you get everything done that you want to get done in the week or do you feel like you're continually chasing your tail? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to start a conversation with you around productivity.
So, productivity comes in various forms. You may use that word regularly. It may be something that's totally unfamiliar to you. To start this conversation, I want to talk about what it's not before we look at what it is. See, there are some myths out there, things that have been taught to us over the years that do not service, and there's a couple of them that I want to talk to you about before we get into the topic of productivity.
The first thing is this elusive, mysterious myth called time management. See, it's not you or I that manage time. There's 24 hours in a day. We're not going to get any more than 168 hours in a week. We're not able to manage time. So, that's part of the problem. If we try to manage something that's not within our control, then we're never going to be able to achieve it.
Over the years have been many, many courses that I've done on time management where I've subscribed to the idea of this thing as well. But what I've found is that even though there's no such thing as time management, there are 3 key things that you and I can do to be able to get more done in the day, in the week, in the year, and we're going to talk about this over the next few weeks.
The second myth that I wanted to dispel is the myth around work-life balance. See, work-life balance is a myth. It assumes firstly that work and life are separate when work is just a part of life. It's one of the things that consumes your time. So, what we want to look for instead is our own perfect life balance. And that's something that's different for you than it could be for me because we have different priorities, different things we wanted to get done, we're at a different stage of life, a different stage of career, business, whatever it is.
So, let's come back now and have a conversation now that we know what it's not. Let's have a conversation about what productivity is. So, we've established that it's not about time management, it's not about work-life balance. And I said there are 3 elements to getting more things done.
3 things that we can actually manage when we make a decision to do so. The first of those is priority management. So, what is it that we allow to fill space in our day? What is it that we allow to take up bandwidth in our calendar? And there are many reasons why things are priority and things are not. Why things appear like they're a priority in the moment because they're a comfort activity or whatever and we're going to talk about that next week.
The second area that we can manage is our environment. What are we allowing in our environment to take our focus, to distract us, to give us things shiny or not to look at that are not involved in what it is that we need to achieve right now? What are we consuming on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a yearly basis? The average person apparently watches about 4 hours of television a day. So when we take that and we multiply that out over an entire year, that's 2 full months, 24/7 gone out of our life, out of our opportunity to be productive and get more done.
So, what is it that you're doing to consume your bandwidth? What are you allowing to distract you? And the third area that we can manage is our energy and how we manage our priorities and how we manage our environment has a lot to do with how much energy we have. I don't know about you, but there's a lot of times when I'll get home from working with clients or whatever it is that I'm doing. And there was times I didn't have enough energy to be who I needed to be when I got home. I'm spent, I'd given all my energy.
So, those are the 3 things that we're going to talk about this month. So, let's recap them. Priority management, environment management, and energy management. So, it's not about time management, it's not about work-life balance. It's not about to-do lists. In fact, one of the greatest things that I have ever been introduced to, to counter the to-do list is my to-don't list. What are the things that I'm not going to allow to consume my bandwidth, to get my attention, to sap my energy. So, that's it for me again this week. Join me next week when we continue this conversation around productivity by looking at our priority management. I'll see you then.
Do you feel like you're running day to day by the seat of your pants or do you have everything organised and planned? Doing things on purpose with a clear intention?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to finish our conversation around intention by talking about your plan.
So over the last few weeks, we've been talking about our values, our vision and our mission. And when I said we would do this week is to look at how we put that all together into a workable plan. I have a lot of people who tell me that, "Oh yeah, look, I know what I've got to do. It's all up here." And what I want to do is challenge you to understand that writing it down, making sure that we have a clear understanding of where we're going, that we could quite easily explain to someone else and they would understand it.
Therefore, being simple and concise enough is what people who are more successful and get more done do. So, I want to invite you to change the way you do things if you need to and to do more planning. Now, obviously we need to put action behind the plan. Without putting the action behind the plan, the plan is just a document. It's just something that would frustrate us because we know we want to do and we're not doing it.
So, there's a few things that I want to talk about that will help us with our plan and then we'll get into the practicality. So, the first thing we need to recognise is that the plan of today is slightly different to the plan we used to do. The world has changed. We are a lot faster and changing more quickly than we used to.
We're in this VUCA world that we always talk about, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. We are more global. I mean, right now, I'm coming to you from the Solomon Islands where I'm here for three days. I've just finished for the day in taking 25 government leaders through some emotional intelligence and leadership training. So, I'm planning doing this now so that my team have got it to be able to produce when I need to for you to be able to see it.
So, things are a little bit different now. I'm someone who had to change their thinking around this and had to realise that running by a calendar, running by a plane, running by set of guidelines for me is important. Yet, as I said, we want to make sure that we're doing a plan that fits today's world. So, a good friend of mine, Taki Moore, taught me about three horizons of focus and it's like thinking about going in to space.
So, we've got that right up there in space position, which is a satellite view of looking down over the top of everything that's going on. We've got that space when we're just breaking through the atmosphere and then we've got the launch. So, if we use that same analogy, we can look at the top of plans that I use and that I work with my clients to help them to stay on track.
So, we firstly want to have a look at that overview. And for me, that's a three year plan. So, how do I want it to look three years from now? And that's where our vision and our mission come in. So, three years from now describing it in the present tense, i.e. it is now. So, what are we today? The 26th of February, 2020 as I'm recording this. So, it's the 26th of February, 2023 and so we then describe what that looks like.
We describe in the certain areas within our life, within our business, whatever it is, what is different to how it is now, and that's the results that we want. Then we come back to the breaking through the atmosphere. And for me, that's a year from now, 12 months from now. So, it's the 26th of February, 2021 and we have a statement around what things look like then, what does my team look like? How am I investing my time? What is my income? Those sorts of things. Whatever it is that's important to you in your plan.
And then we want to come back to launch, which is when the rubber is actually meeting the road and we're doing the actions. And for me, that is the next 90 days. So, we've got a year, we have four quarters, and we break that down and then we have a plan for the next 90 days and that becomes our main focus.
So, why 90 days? So, 90 days is long enough for you to set some goals and stretch a little bit, but it's close enough to see the end result or to see the finish line. So in our planning, we want to have three years, one year, 90 days, and then break that 90 days into projects that we're going to get done. So, a project is something that's a little bit larger than a task, so it has more than one task.
So, I like to make sure that myself, personally, I take on no more than three three big rocks, three big projects within the 90 days. Then breaking that down so that we have actions that allow us to achieve whatever the overall project goal is for that 90 days. So, what have we done here? We've looked at what it's going to be like three years down the track for it to be that way.
Three years down the track. What does it need to look like 12 months from now, and then for me to achieve that 12 month goal? What do I need to get done in the next 90 days? Within that 90 days and what I need to get done? What do I need to do this week? What do I need to do tomorrow? What do I need to do today? And breaking that down into bite-sized actionable chunks. So, having a plan to execute our mission, our vision, surrounded and supported by our values is vital if we want to actually go beyond just having a big picture, thinking about what I'd like the world to look like.
So, that's it from me this week. I encourage you to take what I've taught you today, to put together a plan, and I'm not talking about a plan that you need to go and get a loan from the bank with. I'm talking about a one-page plan that guides you so that you know who you need to be and what you need to do so that you can get to where you is that you're wanting to go.
So, I'm signing off now from the Solomon Islands. I've earned a bit of time around the pool. I'm going to go and get changed and do that now, and I look forward to reading some comments down in the comments area around your plan. If you have any questions, then pop those in there as well, and I'll see you again next week. Bye for now.
Do you feel like you're working in your calling? What's totally coming out of you as being the real you? Or do you feel like you're going through the motions and you're not quite sure that things are lining up with where you want them to go? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to finish our series of talking about our values and our vision by talking about your mission.
So, we talked about your values, those things that align you, those things that define what you will do and what you won't. And we talked about your vision, that picture for the future of what it is that you want to do, who you want to be, who you want to be around, who you want to associate with. So today, we want to talk about your mission. Your mission is why you exist. It's your whole reason for being and where your vision is about what you're going to do, those goals, those objectives that you set over the future period that you've got in front of you, your mission is more about the why and it's more about the how.
It's about your reason for being. It's your true purpose, your true calling. It's about why you're doing it in the terms of other people that are in your life. So for me, everything that I do is about serving people in my life, like my family, like my friends, my clients. And your mission defines you. It defines who you're going to bring along on the journey, your purpose for doing what it is that you're doing. And as I said, it comes out of your true self.
So when we have a mission out in front of us where we know this is what we need to do or we're going to bust, then it drives us. It guides us to be able to go beyond what we might do if we had nothing in front of us. You've probably heard people say this man or this woman is on a mission and they can tell that it's something that you're passionate about. It's something that's coming out of your true self, that this is the reason why you're around and that there's no one else that should be doing this because this is who you are and when you're on a mission, you can overcome so much more. You can know why you're doing it.
So when I work with my clients on this and they may be having a challenge coming up with what the message is, I use a little scenario that might help you as well and that is if I was to give you a 15 minute time slot on global television where everyone that had a television or a device on the planet was going to tune in and watch and listen to you, what's the message that you want to leave?
You got one chance. You never get a chance to do it again. What would be that message? What would you want them to know about you and about what it is that you're doing and what's important and where you're going and what they should consider. And by doing that, that exercise allows you to get more clarity around the real you.
Over the years, I've seen myself and others whose message gets changed and gets diluted because they're trying to fit in with what the world wants them to fit in, with what the world is doing. They're following a particular message, which is taking them off track, a popular message or something that's in the media, whatever it is, but it just doesn't feel right. When you are on mission, when you're working in your true purpose, things flow and it's easier and more effortless to get up every day and to be who you need to be, to go where you need to go.
So, the challenge here is to think about this and to sit down and to write a mission statement. And when organisations write a mission statement, they have the elements that we've been working on over the last 3 or 4 weeks. It creates a statement of their purpose. We exist to serve our clients so that whatever it is, it has an element of their core values. This is what we believe in and then articulate the macro-level goals and objective. This is what we want to achieve.
So when you put these elements together, when you have bright values that are true to you, that are tried and tested, when you have a vision for the future of the journey ahead, that is driven by the overall overarching mission of why you're even on the planet, you have purpose. And purpose will provide you with the reasons that you need to push through to get more out of 2020 than any other year since you've been on the planet.
So hopefully over the last 3 or 4 weeks, we have been able to work together and I've been able to help you to get more clarity around the foundation of why it is that you're going to do what it is you're going to do this year. And when we go into next week, I want to then put some practicalities around that and have a look at your plan and how to put a plan together moving forward. So, are you working in your true calling or are you going through the motions? Hopefully, something that I've said over the last 3 or 4 weeks has helped you, has stirred you up to be able to realign you with your true purpose.
Well, that's it for me for another week. I'm just fresh back from India. I had an amazing time in India working with some brilliant people and I've got a few days at home, speaking to you, getting some things organised before I get to go and work with some amazing people in the Solomon Islands. So when I'm with you next week, I will be there and hopefully I'll be able to bring you some clarity around working on your plan. I'll see you then.
Are you focused on the bigger picture for your life or consumed by your current circumstances? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to talk to you about your vision. Over the last couple of weeks, we've talked about the elements that go to being purposeful, to living with intention. We talk about mission, we talk about vision, and we've talked about values and we went deeper on that last week and I know that you would have set some time aside to get clear and clarity on your values.
So this week, I want to continue the conversation around your personal vision. Vision allows us to see. It's like a few months ago, I was coming back from Hong Kong and I was flying back into Sydney and the pilot came on to let us know that because of the bushfires which were burning and are still burning today, there was a lot of smoke and it had restricted his vision down to about four kilometers. Now, that might sound like a lot, but at 40,000 feet, that's not very far. So, what he had to do was to use a different plan, a different set of skills, and others had to get involved so that we could land the plane where we were going. We could get to our destination with some tweaks and adjustments to the flight plan.
And it's the same in our life. If we've got our head down all the time and we're just in our current day to day in our circumstances and we're not looking up and we don't have a vision for where we're going, it's been said that without a vision, people perish.
You see, your vision allows you to see. If I take off these glasses then I'm not able to see, my vision is impaired. But, our vision defines who you want to be, how you want to be known, the experiences and achievements that you aim for. It helps you to define your actions and provides a framework to evaluate those actions and make sure that they are congruent with who you want to be.
Your personal vision defines what you want to be, do, feel, have think, who you want to influence, who you want to impact in a year from now, three years from now, five years, 10 years from now. It sets a plan for your journey ahead. So when we're looking at our personal vision, we know what we value. So, that obviously is going to come into what we want to see in the future. So, we're painting a picture of something that hasn't happened yet. We are allowing our brain to see where it is that we want to go. In coaching, it's called future pacing. So, we're looking at a life not yet lived and achievement not yet gained and we're painting a vivid picture around that.
So when you're coming up with a personal vision statement and you've collected by brainstorming and mud mapping and getting out a big bit of paper and going offline and just analog, old school, just jotting down what it is, where it is, who it is, et cetera, getting all that information together and then being able to put that into a statement for you that you can read, that you can learn that's hardwired and can come up whenever you need to that says what you want to do and the reason why.
So, the framework that you can use for this is to come up with a statement that says to whatever it is that you want to do, who you want to become, whatever it is and then "so that". I love the work that Simon Sinek has done about finding your why and that's a great book if you want to read more about this and it's certainly, he's been one of my mentors in this area and he talks about this. So this is what I want to do, but this is the reason I want to do it. And when we've got those two things together, that's where purpose lives.
So for me, it's to be generous with my gifts and talents so that I can change lives for the better all around the world. So, what's your 2020 vision? What is it that you want to achieve this year? So, I challenge you to go through the process of what it is that is important to you, what it is that you want to do, and what's the reason why. And I'd really love to see some of you drop it down in the comments, speak it out, and then you're able to get the values that we talked about last week and get that vision and look at them and go, "Am I living congruently?"
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week where we'll continue this conversation around purpose by looking at your overall life's mission. I'll see you then.
Do you feel congruent with your values or is there a conflict in one or more areas of your life? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around purpose by talking about your values.
So last week, we talked about 3 elements in purpose, in being able to live with intention. We talked about your mission, your overall reason for being and for doing. We talked about your vision, what you can see in the future, and we talked about your values, what it is that underpins everything that you do. And today, I want to talk about those values. I want to give you an opportunity to come with me on a journey to redefine your values, to get back in line with your values. We talked about our vision that is underpinned by our values. Having those in alignment give us congruency. Your values are the motive behind every purposeful action. They drive you, they motivate you, they align you, they check you, they confuse you when they're not congruent. So when we talk about our values, values can either be ideal or actual. So, ideal values are those that are set by cultural norms, by our religious beliefs, by what other people, what the world says are values that we should live by.
And there's the word there, "should", they're very judgmental. So, what we do when we are tracing those ideal values and we're not fully equipped and we're not perfect because we never will be, we can actually be living different values, our real values, our actual values. So, what I want to do is give you the opportunity to recheck in on your values and to prioritise your values. And when I work with my clients, I helped them to get closer to those ideal values, making sure that they are values that they have set for themselves, not what the world has set for them and not running the approval addiction or the Performance Trap is we've talked about before. But to prioritise your values, you first have to know what your whole list of values are. See for me, I have a list of priority values that I check in with all the time. So for me, it's about family. It's about self-worth, it's about integrity, generosity, learning, and influence. So, there are key values that underpin who I am and what I do. And when I'm outside those values, it doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel like I'm in flow, it holds me back. I know there's that sense of it's not really working right there. So, one of the things that I like to do to make sure that I'm in line with my ideal values, the values that I've chosen to be important to me that guide my priorities, I do a little test called the Calendar and Bank Account Test.
See, it's been said many times before that you can tell what's important to someone by where they invest their time and their money. Now, that's not totally what it's all about, but those two currencies tend to help me to stay on track. So, practical way that I do that in my calendar, my calendar is colour-coded. By the way, I'm someone that has to constantly operate with a calendar. I'm not naturally an organised person. I've got a great team that helps me with that as well. However, what I have done differently over the years, it's really served me, is have a calendar that has different colours for my different values. So for example, I mentioned family, so if you'd look in my calendar, you would see that family is colour-coded in royal blue, and then if you were to look at the things that I do in my health and my vitality, they are in a green because that's about growing. If I look at things that I'm doing to do with my business and my practice as an influencer, then that is colour-coded in a light blue, which is the same colour as the blue in my logo. If I'm doing things with my business, People Builders, it's in orange, which is the same colour as the orange for that company, et cetera. So, I can look at my calendar visually and I choose those colours purposefully so that I can look at my calendar and go, "Hey, Grant. You said family is your highest value, as is integrity." So looking at your calendar this week, that doesn't appear to be the case. Your actual values are showing up in your colours.
So, what that's allowed me to do over the years is make sure that I set intention in my calendar for my ideal values. So, I've got time in there, space put away, bandwidth, protected for family, for learning, for health and vitality, exercise, meditation, motivation, for reading, for getting my spiritual and my mental as well as my physical health where it needs to be. There's some pro bono work that I do in certain areas that allow me to be generous. Being generous with my time, with my knowledge, I'm giving that to you right now with no need for you to give me anything in return. So, I can look at those things and go, "Hey, that's good." You are living within the values that you say are true to you.
So, that'd be a great thing for you to consider. A. If you're not using your calendar to use one. B. is to get your values, get them aligned in your calendar. In the same way I can look at my bank account and look where I'm investing my finances. Am I being a great steward for my family or am I investing at all in my self, in my business or whatever it is? Am I spending it on things that are not part of the overall plan? Am I scrolling on social media and I see one of those gadgets that pop up that I just have to have and I invest money in that? Let's face it, I spend money on that. So, that is a good way in a forward-focused reflection way to check in and go, "Am I in my ideal values or outside that?"
And by the way, what I mean with that forward-focused reflection is this is not another reason or another opportunity for you to feel bad about yourself, for you to go, "Oh, I'm terrible. I don't live with inside my values. I'm a fraud, I'm running the impostor syndrome." Whatever it is. No, it's just a check measure to be able to go, "Hey, we've gone off track a little bit. The plane's not quite going where we want it to go because my vision is not clear and therefore I need to bring it back on track." So in your values, are you in conflict or are you in congruence? So set yourself an intention. Get an action plan, list out values. You can Google list of values if you want to increase your vocabulary around that, come up with about 20 of them and then bring them down to about 7 and then test them with the Calendar and the Bank Account Test.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Next week, we're going to continue talking about purpose, where we're going to have a look at your vision and create a personal vision statement for yourself. I'll see you then.
Do you feel like the years got away from you already? We're in February and you're not quite clear on what it is that you want to achieve this year. Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to talk to you about Purpose.
So, when we have a high-level of intentionality, it's all about doing things on purpose. We've got a reason behind doing it. We understand our why and when we do that in those times when things may not be going exactly how we want them to go, we can go, "Okay, I know what I'm doing this for." And that will sustain us to be able to have that internal motivation to keep pressing through. So today, I want to talk to you about how we get clear on that purpose. Let's take a look.
So, there's 3 elements that I believe that we need to get clarity around so that we can have a purpose, have a reason for being, a reason for doing. The 3 areas are our values, our vision, and our mission. If we look at that from an organisational context, we would start at the top. We would go, "What is our mission?" And we'd have a mission statement. We would then expand that out to a vision statement, which was a little bit closer to where we were wanting to go. It was closer to where we were right now, in terms of time. And then we would have values that underpin those vision and mission.
So, what I want to do this month is help us to have a conversation around those 3 things. Because when we have clarity around our mission, we know what we're supposed to be doing. We know what we're actually there for. We're going on a mission and our mission is to. When we have a vision, we can see what's in front of us, we can see where we're going. We have clarity around the next year. And when we have our values, we know that we're on track, we know when we're off track, and we have what drives us in the forefront.
So, when we it clear on our values, what's most important to us, and we have a great vision, we know where it is that we want to go this year, we have congruency. It means that what we're doing, where we're going is in line with who we are. One of the biggest challenges is when we come out of that congruency and we feel like a fraud. We feel like this isn't me. This isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. This goes against who I am. So, get clear on the values, get clear on the vision. Those two together give us congruency.
So, when we have a clear vision and that vision is our derivative of our overall mission, when we've got the clarity around those two things, then we've got a cause. We've got something to stand for, we've got something to believe for, and we know exactly our purpose for the next leg of our journey. So, what are we going to do to get that clear vision? And we're going to do that over the next few weeks. We're going to look at these things individually so that we know exactly where we want to go and make sure that we have checkpoints to go, "Hey, am I on mission here?"
The third thing is when we are clear on our mission, why we're here, what the overall reason is for being and for doing, and we are clear on our values and we're operating out of those values, then I believe we've found our calling, our reason for being on the planet. So, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are around how you got here. Every one of us needs a calling. Every one of us needs something to get us out of bed every single day, fired up, motivated, ready to go.
So, those three things, our values, our vision, and our mission will drive our purpose and with purpose, we'll be able to achieve more in 2020 than we've achieved in the last 5 years, in the last 10 years. And we'll be able to get to the end of this year and go, "Not only have I become who I wanted to become, I've also achieved what it is that I'm meant to achieve." So, that's it for me this week. Join me again next week as we unpack values. I'll see you then.
Do you ever feel like you're ready to go to the next level, but you've got so much going on and so many conflicting ideas and understanding about what's true for you and you're not sure where to get started?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to talk to you about unlearning your past truths.
I remember when I was 15, I had a very low self-worth at that point and there was something I found out in my life, in that year, that devastated me as a young boy and it got me to form some beliefs about myself, which held me back for many, many years. To be honest, I had a pity party for over 20 years on this one thing that I found out had happened in my past, that I then made some judgments on myself about and on the world and some truths that I took on then, sabotaged my opportunity to be who it was that I was created to be.
So, when we have untruths in our life, they can hold you back. They can keep you playing a small game and you end up stagnating and not stepping into your full destiny. But, when you give yourself space to learn the truth about yourself and about other situations, you can seize opportunities. You can go to that next level feeling confident and empowered and flowing in your gifts and talents. The world needs your gifts and talents, right now. We need the best version of you. I need the best version of me. My wife needs the best version of me. My children need the best version of me. My clients all around the world need my best version of me. And to do that, I need to give myself some space and unlearn some of those past truths that are holding me back.
So, what about you right now? Just reflect on that for a moment. What is it that you have learned about yourself, about others, about the world, about different areas of expertise and knowledge that may not be true? You see, we form those beliefs which become our thoughts, which become our behaviour, and we've got that internal dialogue going on all the time to make sure that we don't step outside that. So, what I want to do now is just take you through a process for you to be able to unlearn and then relearn what you need for the next step of your journey. Over the last three weeks, we've been setting ourselves up in January, so that we've got a great foundation moving forward for the rest of the year. And we started off by unpacking, unpacking this stuff that we don't need. We then looked at unplugging last week, unplugging from anything that's negative. And today, we're going to finish that off by looking at how to unlearn. So, let me take you through it.
So, it's a 4 step process with the end result of you setting yourself up with a brain that is wired for success. So, the first part of the process is to recognise. So, recognise, right now, what are the beliefs, what are the mindsets, what are the behaviours that you have that are not serving you and or the people around you. They're not serving your mission, they are holding you back, they're keeping you safe, so you think. So, we need to recognise those and we need to recognise the root cause of where they came from. So, for me, if I go back when I was 15, I found out something that had happened in my childhood that I formed beliefs about myself on. So, I was given some evidence and that evidence, by the way, lined up perfectly to how I felt about myself anyway. So, it wasn't too hard to convince me.
So, what I needed to do and what you need to do is recognise that there was no truth in it, that it was a truth that I had taken on because it fit and it kept me safe and it stopped me from moving forward. And there was plenty of evidence, just like there is with your beliefs, with your unhealthy mindsets and your unhealthy behaviours, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. So, the first thing we're going to do is recognise what it is that's holding us back, what it is that needs further investigation to be proven incorrect.
The second part of the process is to reject it. So, as we said, we've got these beliefs, we've got these behaviours, we've got these mindsets and our internal dialogue that we have convince us that we need that. We need that to stay safe. So, before we'll do anything about it, we actually have to let it go. We have to reject its validity. We have to go, "You know what? That's what I used to believe, but it's no longer true." It's like in the field of neuroscience that I do a lot of work in, as you know. For a number of years, we had an understanding of this whole left and right brain dominance principle, and over years of lots of research, lots of study, a far better imaging to what we had before, we now know that that's not true, that you're not either left or right brain dominance. And if people are still teaching that, you need to help them to understand that that's not the case. Yet, if you believe that before you can move on to the new truth, you've got to reject that that is the truth. So, the second part of the process is to reject it. So, it's not serving me. It's not true. I'm not believing that anymore. I'm moving forward.
The third part of the process is to replace. So, once we've recognised and we've rejected, we need to replace that untruth that we've unlearned with a new truth that we can learn. So, we need to look at what is really true. So, in my case, I looked at the fact that I was unlovable. And then, when I got to the point of going, "You know what? I'm going to move forward from this." I rejected that. I then needed to learn and replace that with, "You are lovable." And by going through that process and looking at it with a healthy perspective, with a forward focus, reflection, and a moving forward mentality, I had plenty of evidence that I am lovable and that I am worthy of being loved. So, I recognised it, I rejected it, and I replaced it with a much more empowering belief that I am lovable and worthy to be loved. So, what is it for you? What is it that you're going to replace that mindset, that behaviour with, that habit, whatever it is that you want to unlearn and relearn to get better results in 2020.
And the fourth part of the process is to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat the new mindset, the new behaviour, the new learning, the new habit, whatever it is, so that you rewire your brain. And then, that new belief, that empowering belief, that empowering habit or behaviour comes up and serves you and those around you without you needing to hit the button just like your old ones did. So, for you to set yourself up as we go in towards the end of January, we need to unlearn those things that we've thought to be true, that we've been holding ourselves back with and then relearn the good stuff, the stuff that is true, the stuff that is going to take you forward into your full destiny in 2020 and beyond.
Well, that's it from me for another week and another month. And I've really enjoyed this process that we've kicked off with in 2020, so if you haven't yet subscribed and got involved to join the conversation, I really want to encourage you to come with me and go to, firstly, grantherbert.com and join the conversation. Register to get these videos and podcasts every week, so that you can come on the journey with thousands of other people, as we set ourselves up to ensure that 2020 is our best year yet. I'll see you next week.
Do you find yourself feeling a little bit drained sometimes from all the negative that goes on around you? Do you wish you could just devoid yourself of all that negative and focus on what it is that you want to achieve?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue this building a foundation for January, so that we can have a greater success in 2020 by talking about Unplugging from Negative.
For those of you who've been following the journey since the start of the year, you know that I would have talked about three things that we need to do. We need to unpack our bags and we talked about that last week.
So, if you haven't watched that one yet, it'd be great to go back and to watch or listen to that one as well so that we can then move forward.
Next week, we're going to talk about unlearn.
But, I talked about the fact that we had an issue with our power in our home last year, and what was going on was the circuit breaker kept tripping. So, the positive flow of electricity that allowed me to do what I wanted to do wasn't happening. And when I went out to the circuit breaker box and I pushed the button back up, it just tripped again, and every single time I tried to reset, it tripped.
So, I did a little bit of Google searching, as we do, and I found out that what you need to do, so that you can isolate what appliance it is that's creating the problem.
And that is to totally unplug it from the socket.
Because when it's still connected in the socket, there's a residual power, a residual energy, a residual connection to the source.
Once I unplugged everything in the house and then went and tripped the circuit breaker back to its original position, it stayed on and I got the electricity out and it had burned out by that stage and we had to get it all fixed.
But, at the end of the day, it was about isolating what was it that was causing the problem. And that's what I want to have a little bit of a chat with you about today.
So, when we think about unplugging, what most people think about is, "Oh, unplugged from my social media", and that could be a good thing, but I think there's a lot more to it than that.
What we're talking about is unplugging from anything that's creating negative energy and throwing negative into our environment that then stops us from being who we need to be to move forward and do what we want to do and what we need to do in 2020.
We need to unplug from anything that's toxic.
We need to unplug from any people that are feeding us negative time and time again.
We need to unplug from any media or press.
Right now, here in Australia, there's a lot of negative press going on around things of climate change, around our bushfires, around all the wildlife that we've lost since November last year, and we're in a bit of a reprieve today.
We've had some beautiful rain again today and there's a lot of negative even talk about that because the rain can create a landslides because the soil has been interrupted, there's no debris on the top of it to hold it in, that we can have trees falling down, et cetera, and whilst that's real, it's erring on the side of negative in everything that you read, in everything that people talk about, and people take a view based on what they hear and it can upset the equilibrium of positive in your life and you can start feeling down.
Now, I love the fact that Australia is such a giving country and we feel for those who have lost their homes, we feel for the animals that have lost their lives, we feel for the loss of the environment, and we feel for the firefighters who have tirelessly worked to keep us safe, but at the end of the day, there are several things that we need to look at that we need to unplug from in that process, so that it doesn't affect us and put us in a position where we don't move forward.
In fact, I've heard a number of people who have said, and I've read a number of people's comments before I unplugged from it all, that was saying, "I just feel like...I feel guilty about doing anything in my business. I feel guilty about doing anything in my life, while these other people are going through what they're going through.”
And whilst the sentiment behind that is great, that's not what's going to help us to rebuild our country. So, that's enough of that before I get too political or get into things that I don't really want to talk about, that I want to unplug from.
We also need to unplug from habits, habits that we may have developed over the Christmas break that are not serving us. One of the big habits for me, because I was home, was going to the fridge and getting something to eat far too often and I'm now needing to rebuild my health and vitality where it needs to be, so that I can have the energy to do what I need to do in 2020.
So, what is it that you need to unplug from? So, when we unplug from the negative, obviously, what we're doing is we're allowing room for more of the good stuff. We're allowing room for more of the positive to be in our life and there are three things that I want to talk to you about in doing that.
So, the first thing is we need to protect our perspective. When we have an influx of negative all the time, our perspective on the world, our ability to be who we need to be to get done what we need to do can be damaged and we can take a negative perspective on the overall outlook of the environment of the world. And that's going to stop us from doing what we need to do.
The second thing are our priorities and our priorities affect our focus. So, when we are off in the negative, we are listening to things that may or may not have anything to do with us and may actually take away energy and focus from our priorities, our priorities to our own self-care, our priorities to our family, to our friends, our priorities to our business and personal goals. So, perspective can be built up and kept positive by unplugging from this stuff.
So, the third area is our performance. The impact of positive in our life will allow us to have a greater level of performance. We'll get more done with the energy that we have and we'll have some leftover, so that we can enjoy what it is we do outside of our business, out of our career, and whatever. The way that we are built, the way that we are wired, negative has an effect on our brain wiring. Negative has an effect on the way that our brain works with our body and things like the fight, flight, freeze response can be triggered by this negative, if it's linked to other things in our emotional memory and we talk about that a lot in the emotional intelligence work that I do, but we really need to be able to set ourselves up with a positive environment, so that we can perform and get what it is done that we need to get done on the planet.
So, what is it that you need to unplug from right now? So, go ahead. Before you do anything else, unplug from me and then sit down and work out, reflect on the things that you've taken on that are negative, reflect on the people that you've allowed to bring negative into your life, reflect on what you've been reading, what you've been doing, the thoughts that you've been having, and what do you need to unplug from so that that source no longer has a negative power over you.
So, that's it for me again this week. Next week, we're going to talk about the third area, which is unlearn. I'll see you then.
Have you hit the ground running in 2020? Do you have all the energy that you need to be able to get what you want to get done in January and beyond? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to talk to you about removing the things that are holding you back.
So last week, we talked about the 3 things that we could do in January. We could unpack, unplug, and unlearn. So, what I want to do today and then over the next two weeks is just go through those individually. So today, I want to get started by talking about unpacking your baggage. We're all on a journey. We're going somewhere. We started on the 1st of January, and this year's journey, we'll finish on the 31st of December. And there are situations that are going on around us. In Australia, right now, we've got bushfires everywhere. Thank God, we had some rain last night, but it's been pretty tough for a lot of people physically involved and actually in those fires and those that are supporting and people like me that are just doing what they can from the sidelines but also feeling certain ways about things that are going on. There's a lot of unrest and uncertainty and a lack of understanding around why this is happening. So, there's a lot of baggage that some of us are collecting already in the first week of January. So, I want to really talk to you about unpacking your bags for the rest of the journey from today. So, right here, right now, draw a line in the sand and go, "Okay, I'm going to make a decision to put some things out of my bag and stop carrying them for the rest of the year and beyond.
I don't know about you, but when I travel places, even when I go into the city to work into my city office, I have a particular bag that I carry and, a lot of times, it's hanging on my shoulder and, a lot of times, it's pretty heavy because I take everything in there I need just in case. And that can create a little bit of pain, it can create a little bit of hurt, and it's sort of makes me walk slower. So, it is a distraction that holds me back from getting to where I want to go. So, just like that, you and I have baggage that we brought with us from 2019 and before that that if we continue to carry during the rest of 2020, it's going to hinder us from bringing out our best self, from performing at the best that we can, from being the best version of ourselves that we owe it to ourselves to be. So, what I want to do is just step through some of the things that you might be holding onto. And, when I work with our clients in our monthly program, when we all get together once a month and I go live for a couple of hours and we go deeper on answering your questions and those sorts of things, we'll go deeper into those and, specifically, talk to you one on one, but, right now, I want to take you through a process. So, even if you're not a part of that community, you can still go through what I go through with my clients and get rid of some of those baggage.
All right. So, I've got a bag here. It's one that I carry sometimes, and I'm just going to reach in here and see what I might be carrying in my bags over previous years or what you might be carrying as well.
All right. So, let's have a look at what that could be here. What do we got here? So, the first one is mistakes and that could be mistakes that you made last year, that could be mistakes that you've made previously, or it could even be mistakes that you've made from the 1st of January till now. So, what mistakes are you still thinking about that have got a hold of you, that are creating an emotional unrest in you, that are stopping you from moving forward again and trying something new or continuing with whatever it was that you made a mistake with.
All right. So, there's mistakes. What else have we got? There could be conflicts. Conflicts that you had with yourself, conflicts that you had with others in 2019. You might be still carrying those. All right.
What have we got here? Limiting beliefs. Beliefs that you have about yourself or about the world or about others that's holding you back from moving forward in your destiny.
Here's a big one and I did this for many, many years. Unforgiveness. Who do you need to forgive for what's gone in the past? Starting with yourself. That's where I found most of the unforgiveness was. So, unforgiveness is a huge weight that a lot of us carry around.
What else? Past hurts. Who hurt you last year? What are you still carrying around from that? How is carrying that around helping you to move forward?
What else have we got here? Meanings. Remember, nothing has meaning in life, except the one that you give it. So, what meanings did you place on situations, events, on when people said things to you or about you? Things that you read on social media. What meanings did you put on that that became your truth? We need to, perhaps, look at that and see if that needs to come with us moving forward.
Words. What words were spoken about you, around you, or by you that are not serving you?
Decisions. What decisions did you feel that you've made either last year or, already, this year that you didn't quite get right, that you're not happy with? So, we've got to have a look at those.
Few more. Projects. This is a big one for me. What projects did you commit to, did you start, have you been carrying for many, many years that just aren't working for you and really don't fit your plan right now? So, there's various projects that you could be doing.
People. And this one's a little bit controversial, so let's tread carefully here. So, what people did you allow in your life in 2019 that are not treating you the way that you need to be treated, that are not living up to what it was that you and they decided to do together, that are a negative influence, that are always talking down about things? For me, this whole thing about the Australian fires, it's brought out some pretty unhealthy talk on social media and other places. So, for me, I've had to look at who do I need to hit that button that says hide what they're saying for a month. Snooze from them for a month. So, people, sometimes we're carrying those as well.
Couple more. Habits. What habits did you form in 2019 that aren't healthy? For me, I formed a habit in the last a couple of weeks, which is not all that healthy and it's sitting here on my waistline. So, I'm talking to me too here. So, what is the baggage that you're carrying right now?
And I've got one more. Haters. Hey, if you're doing anything worthwhile in the world, which you are, you're going to have people who don't like you doing it, that don't understand why you're doing it, that are going to have their own frame of reference around that, and they could speak harshly towards you or about you.
So, all these things carrying in our bag wear us down. So, what we want to do moving forward in the next week is make a conscious decision to unpack some of those things from our bag. When we go through that process that we did at the end of the year of reflecting, we're doing it in a way that's forward-focused. So, reflecting on what we've got in our bag, how we picked it up, where we got it from, and then realigning it with who we are, with what it is that we're doing in 2020, and then going, "You know what? Is that serving me? Is it going to help me on the journey or is it holding me back?" And, if it's holding me back and it's not serving, we're going to chuck it out and we're going to leave just what we need in our bag. So, what limiting beliefs you're going to get rid of? What experiences did you have that you made meanings around that you're going to change, that you're going to let go? And, when we do this, that's going to leave us room and space and energy to focus on the things that we want to get done, to focus on where it is that we want to go.
Well, that's it from me this week. Join me again next week when we look at unplugging from negative, I'll see you then.
Are you feeling fully refreshed and ready to go into 2020 and achieve your goals? Do you feel like you have your plan and your intention set in a way that are going to help you to get the results that you want? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and I want to kick off 2020 by giving you a message and some tips around 3 things that you can do to make sure that your January sets you up for success throughout 2020.
So, happy New Year to all of you. Welcome to a new year, a new decade. I'm still in a little bit in holiday mode, although the office opens again today. I've got my Christmas period beard going on. I'm not sure how long that will stay. However, I wanted to make sure that I gave you what I could today to help you to get started fast.
So, let's take a look at what people like you and I can do to hinder what it is that we want to do in 2020. We can take the process that we went through in December of reflection and we can use it in a negative way as we go into the new year. We can look at the things that we got wrong in 2019 and they become an anchor and stop us from going forward. We can have a look at all those things that we became that we're not happy with and we can allow those to form beliefs about ourselves, which are not going to service and are going to hold us back.
But, I want to take you through 3 things that you and I can do in January while everybody else is still getting started again, having a think about whether or not I'll set some goals. Well, we're going to hit the ground running and do 3 things to set us up for success. Now, by the way, when I say the word success, that means something totally different to you than it does to me. And, to be honest, even I feel it's a word that I use too often. What is success? So, I think that's the first step is let's work out what success is for you before we go through this process. But now, having done that, getting ready to propel ourselves into 2020, let's take a look at these 3 things.
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Hey, everyone. This is Grant and we have come to the end of another year. We've come to the end of another decade. It's the season to have fun and, you know, to get a bit crazy and to just reflect on the great opportunities that await you in 2020.
So over the last 3 or 4 months, I kicked off a series to really get us ready so that we could go into 2020 so much stronger and we could set an intention to move to a new level. Now, we talked about stress, we talked about sleep, we talked about self-care, we talked about personal power and having that inner knowing that you have everything that you need to be. You've got everything within you and around you to get ahead in life. You've just got to believe in that and believe in yourself, and you can do whatever it is that you need to do. You can be whoever it is that you need to be in every area of your life. We talked about setting boundaries and learning to say no and say yes appropriately. And last week, we started talking about intentionality. Over the last couple of weeks, intentionality. And we talked about going through the process to set us up to finish strong in 2019.
So as this is going to air, it's the 30th of January here in Australia. We got one more day. And what most people will do on the 31st of January is they will set some New Year's resolutions of things that they're not going to do next year or things that they're going to do differently next year. And you can go to any gym, for example, on the 31st and the 30th and the days before that of January and it's pretty empty. You go there the 1st week of January and it's full. You can't get on a machine. But sure enough in the third week of January, there's plenty of room on the machine because people have great intentions, but they don't set an intention that they are commited to. And they haven't set themselves up mentally and physically and belief-wise, et cetera, to be able to do things differently to what they did last year.
So I really hope that I've had some opportunity to speak into your life. I've had many of you connecting with me, asking me questions. I'd really love to see that increase more as we go into 2020 and I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear in the comments what are the things that you want to know more about. What journey can I take you on? You know, I know from my, you know, many years of experience of travelling around the world, working with people, people just like me, like you, the things that we need to work on, but I want to scratch where you're itching right now. And the more people who get involved with me, the greater I'll be able to give back.
So to finish off 2019, a year, for me, that had some extreme highs and some extreme lows. You know, we know it's what happens to us in life. It's what we make it mean that's important. But I'm charged, ready to go, doing things differently in some areas in 2020 and I'm looking forward to the new decade bringing me more opportunities to step into my full destiny, to step into what it is that I'm on the planet and I'm supposed to be doing so that I can leave a legacy for generations to come.
So what about you? As we go into 2020, what are you going to do differently next year? You know, by the way, if you don't believe in yourself, what I want you to do is I want you to take the belief that I have in you and work with that for awhile until you catch up, until you start believing for yourself. So it's been my privilege to work with you this year. I'm looking forward to taking you somewhere else on another level next year. Have an amazing New Year, set some intentions, and go into 2020 knowing that when you have a plan and you've prepared and you've put in the action, you get the results. I look forward to speaking with you again in 2020. Bye for now.
Are you really looking forward to the end of 2019? So that you can get into a new year, a new decade, and leave this one behind?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around Intentionality by talking about finishing strong and planning well.
Every year, I go through a process at this time of the year with my clients to help them to be able to move forward and have an even better year next year than the one that they had this year.
See, you can achieve more in the first 90 days of next year than most people will do in the whole year by learning from the past and strategically planning for the future. The problem is most people are anchored to the past. You know, they look at where they were at the end of 2018 and then look at where they are now and then look at everything that didn't go well and everything becomes a problem and I understand. I used to be there. You know, it's like going on a holiday and you book a hotel from the website and it looks really, really great on the website and then you get there and it doesn't look that good. It doesn't look anything like the one that you thought that you'd booked. Now, does that stop you from ever going on holiday again? Does that stop you from ever using the internet to book a hotel again? No. We learn from that and we move forward. And the other problem that I see is people reacting to chaos all the time. So instead of having things planned, they are just seat of your pants, let's just do it from day to day, and let's react to the chaos that are surround us. And one of the really big things I say at this time of year in particular is this debilitating behaviour of comparison.
So comparing yourself to where you were last year and have I been good enough this year? Have I done enough this year? Comparing yourself to others and your perceived view of their success. And that can be a major downer for you as you go into the holiday period and all these things end up that you go into the new year missing opportunities. It locks you up in the current year and doesn't release you to go and do greater things in 2020 and beyond. So I want to help you with that. I want to change your results by changing the way that you finish the year and move into the next year. Now, I'll tell you straight upfront, I do not subscribe to new year's resolutions. This is a process that I do not only at the end of the year, but I do it every quarter and so to my clients. So instead of being anchored in the past, what we want to do is learn from the experiences we've been through and then move on.
You know, it's like Benjamin Franklin. He failed so many times in getting the light globe to work. The electric light globe. But what he really did and every time he got asked about it is he learnt all the ways not to do it. So he moved on to the next one, otherwise we would be standing in the dock right now, perhaps. So we learn to move on from things. We take the time to realign where we are, realign where we're going, realign with our values. So we look at what we did and we make sure that it's realigned and on purpose where we're going.
And we set up a personal flight plan. You know, an airplane, and I go on a lot of them, airplanes are only ever on track twice. Once before it pulls back from the gate and then again once it's reached the gate at the other end and it stopped. And in between the first and the second, the A and the B, we've got a series of tweaks and adjustments and, you know, flight plan changes based on atmospheric conditions, weather, and that amazing thing called air traffic control. You know, I always love it when we seem like things are going well on a flight and the captain will come on and say, "I'm going to get you at the gate early." And I immediately think, please don't say that because there's an air traffic control at the other end that normally gets you to do five or six laps of the airport before they let you land because of congestion. But we have a personal plan around how we're going to do things differently next year and those things help us to create massive momentum. So instead of being locked up from opportunity, we get started quickly. And as I said, you can get more done in the first 90 days than most people will do in the entire year.
So the whole process starts with getting clear on where you want to go. I use a system. I call it the R4 Method, where we look at the results that you want at the end of 2020. And then we come back to now and go, "Well, how is it different now? What's my current reality?" And then we've got a gap and then we look at what are the roadblocks that are going to stop you from going from where you are now to where you want to go. Things like limiting beliefs, mindsets, behaviors, things that you're doing that sabotage your results. And then we go, "Okay, so what are the resources that we need to add there so that I can go from where I am now to where I want to be and overcome those roadblocks to get there?" So once we've done that, we then can focus on the first 90 days. So let me take you through the process now, once we know where we want to go, that we go through at this time of year so that we can get into 2020, hit the ground running, and build that momentum.
By the way, if you would like a copy of a worksheet to do this, hit me up in the comments and our team will get that to you, but right now you just need a piece of paper. So the first thing we need to do is we need to reflect on the year that's passed. So we look at 2019 and we look at two things: we look at things that worked well and things that didn't quite go as we wanted them to. Now the difference here is the way that we do it. So we do it with what's called forward focused reflection. See, what a lot of people do at this time of year is they get back into the year and they look at everything that didn't work and they get down on themselves and they allow that small voice to pull them back. And those limiting beliefs come up again and it deflates them and disempowers them and they start the year flat. But if we imagine we're in a car and we're going on a journey, when we're in that car, we have two pieces of glass in front of us and no, one of them is not your phone. We have the windscreen or the windshield. This large piece of glass so that we can see where we're going. And then we have the rear-vision mirror, which is that small piece of glass up in front of us so that we can, every now and then, have a look up and see where we've been and see what's happening.
And that metaphor tells us how we need to reflect on our year. So we're reflecting on what's happened, what's been, whilst we're keeping most of our focus on where we're going. So we quickly go back into our past and look at our wins and look at the things that didn't go so well. And the only purpose that we go there is to be able to extract the information that's going to help us as we move forward. So we look at our wins and we go, "What did I do well? What worked?" And we take that and we use it again. And then we look into the things that didn't go so well and the only reason we look at them is to go, "What could I do differently moving forward?" So we reflect in a forward focused way to gather that information for moving forward.
The second thing that we do is we realign. You know, we've probably gone off on a few different paths over the year and done many things that took us off on a tangent that were the things that stopped us from getting everything done, from getting where we needed to be. We've also, perhaps, gone off on some of our priorities, our true priorities, our values, and done some things that were outside that. So we look at what's ahead and we realign based on what we're doing and where we're going and make sure that that fits in with our priorities and our values. Once we've realigned, what we need to do going into Christmas, going into the holiday break, is work out how am I going to refresh. What have I got in place, what am I going to do, and more importantly not do so that I can refresh my energy and be ready to get into the first week of 2020 and get things done?
And then the last thing we want to do is make sure that we know exactly what needs to get done in the first week of 2020. And when I say the first week, it could be the first week back at your career, at your business, or it could be on the 1st of January. That's up to you. But we want to relaunch into the year knowing what we're going to get done. See, those who get more done in the first 90 days will invest time now, invest energy now to go through this reflect process, through the realign and refresh process, and have a plan ready. Those who don't want that momentum will wait 'til somewhere in January and then they'll might put a plan together and get started sometime mid-February. And they're already behind the eight ball. So we want to reflect, we want to realign, we want to refresh, and then relaunch with full of energy knowing exactly what we need to do.
So that's it for me this week. As I said, jump down in the comments. I'd love to hear what this has meant for you, what your reflection tells you, what your refreshing is going to be, and if you want a copy of a worksheet to help you to do that, make sure you ask that as well and give us, you know, an email address to be able to send that to you. That would be fantastic. So next week we're going to continue on this journey of intention by looking at other areas in our plan. I'll see you then.
Do you think and act on purpose and deliberately? Knowing what it takes to control your own outcomes? Your own destiny?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to start a conversation with you about your Intentionality.
Can you believe we are in the final weeks of another decade? 2020 is just 17 days away. This time of the year, you tend to reflect on how your year has gone and this can be either empowering or deflating. As we finish strong together in 2019, I wanted to give you a few thoughts and strategies to make sure you can enter the holidays feeling confident in what you've achieved so far and be ready for an exceptional start to 2020.
To do this, you need to become more intentional. I meet so many people who just run by the seat of their pants, taking each day as it comes, without a plan or purpose. They failed to set goals and commit to them, allowing themselves to be tossed about by the prevailing winds of life. They're constantly distracted from what they want to achieve, whether that's their ideal life, creating their ideal business or career, or being intentional and deliberate in choosing who they develop relationships with in their life. You might be unclear about what you want and fail to plan to achieve specific outcomes. If you are happy with where you are right now, then this may not be for you, but if you are feeling a little let down by 2019, it's time for you to take stock of what you could do differently in the last few days of this year and that will set you up for big things in 2020 and beyond.
So over the next few weeks, I want to take you through some of the things me and my clients do to make that happen in our lives. Things like making decisions and taking action consistent with your goals and values. Managing distractions and staying focused on your goals. Making a consistent effort to bring about the results you want at this time of the year. Getting clear about what you want to make happen in your life, in your career, in your home life or in a particular relationship. It all starts with acting deliberately to achieve the outcomes you want and that takes purpose.
So let me ask you: why are you on this planet? What is your calling What is your purpose for being who you are and doing what you do? If that's a shrug your shoulders type of question and you have no answer, it's no wonder you are not happy with where you are right now. That's like a sailboat without any sails or rudder. There is nothing to propel it forward, so it just sits there and bobs up and down in the water and gets tossed around in the direction of the prevailing circumstances. Purpose is your sails and rudder. It's what catches the wind of your actions and guides you to the actual destination you want to go. It keeps you moving when things are a bit quiet and allows you to shift direction and be agile enough to meet the demands of change without getting overwhelmed and discouraged. You might've had one once, but you allowed life and your perceived failures to steal it from you. It's time to take back control of your life and move into the new decade full of excitement and commitment.
Well, that's it for me this week. Join me again next week as we continue the conversation around Intentionality by talking about planning to succeed. See you then.
Are you one of these people that has a problem saying no? It's a bit of a trick question by the way, and I asked my clients that all the time and most of them come back and go, “Yes, that's me. I have a problem saying no”. I'm going to challenge you on that today. You don't have a problem saying no at all because every time you say yes to something out of obligation, you're saying no to something that's probably one of your true priorities.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to have a conversation with you around learning to say yes and no appropriately.
So over the last few weeks, we've been talking about developing our Personal Power, that inner self-confidence, and knowing that we have everything within us and around us to be who we need to be to get done what we've been put on the planet to get done. We talked about self-care and how self-care is not selfish. It's about putting yourself first so that you can then help others. It's about having a balance between taking care of others with self-taken care of. We talked about on the airplane when the mask drops down and they say fit your mask before assisting other guests.
We went on this month to talk about the number of things and we talked about boundaries, we talked about setting boundaries, and we talked about your priorities and what it is that's important to you, and we talked about making 2 decisions, and then there was the 4 steps that I took you through last week. And by the way, if you're just joining me right now, go back and listen or watch each of those episodes and it'll take you on the journey to where we're getting to today. So today I wanted to finish up this series around Personal Power by talking about saying yes and no appropriately.
We're just about to come into the Christmas season and I find that this is an area or a time of year where there is a lot of people that want a lot of us, and we can have a bit of an energy challenge if we say yes to everything. So the reason I've taken you on this journey to get to here now is we need to have a high personal power, high value on ourselves, exercise self-care, get that mindset sorted out and those behaviours started before we're able to go through with what I'm going to teach you right now.
So right at the start I challenged you and I said, "You don't have a problem saying no, you have a priority problem." So, for example, in my corporate career, if my boss continually asked me to stay back and I just went yes, because I felt I needed to do that, to be liked, to belong, to be part of that team, to get to stay, whatever it was that my inner dialogue was telling me. Then immediately after saying yes, I'd have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing that I had to then miss out on something that I'd promised one of my kids or my wife or someone in my family or a friend. So I said yes out of obligation. And quite often we do that and then that person goes away and then we go, “Oh, why are they asking me to do these things all the time?”.
And at the end of the day, the reason why I ask got asked those questions all the time was because I always said yes. And it's that instant response of, "Yes, I'll just say yes to everything because if I say yes to everything, then people will like me, people will accept me, people will approve of me. And that's where we talked about breaking free of that performance trap. So step one in being able to learn to say yes and no appropriately is to make sure that we have a clear understanding of our true priorities.
Now, right now, this week, it's been pretty hectic for me. I'm just about to go and get on a plane and fly to Melbourne overnight, working with some clients tomorrow, sorting out some things for next year. So even doing this right now, it's going to be shorter than what it normally is because I need to prioritise getting some self-care things done before I go. So it's good for you to know that I most of the time, because I'm human, practise what I'm teaching you. So I'm saying yes to getting those things done that I need to get done before I go that are important to me and no to getting this perfect and getting it, you know, a good length. That's what I'm used to doing.
So let's take a look at how we can learn to say no. So the first thing, as I said, is we get the priorities right. The second thing we want to do is I want you to do an exercise with me where you identify when you say yes, what you're actually saying no to. So, for example, my boss has asked me back, so I go, "Yes!" So that yes is getting me to say no to spending that time with my son or going to my daughter's recital, whatever it is. So we call it out and we write it out this way. We go, "By saying yes to staying back after hours, I'm saying no to going to have quality time with my children."
Now we're doing this not to beat ourselves up and to feel bad, we're doing this to identify which of those are of the highest priority and that's why we need to start with getting the priorities down first. So let's do it the other way, "By saying no to this, I'm saying yes to this." So if I just flip that one, "By saying no to working back every night this week, I'm saying yes to having a balance and quality time with my children."
So you can see how you can flip it the other way, "By saying no to eating this cake, I'm saying yes to my gut health and to a good night's sleep."
"By saying yes to eating all that fast food, I'm saying no to good gut health, which affects my mental health and my ability to perform, et cetera." So we are doing an audit, we're doing an inventory of saying yes and saying no.
So I'd love you to do that. What are the things that you say yes to way too quickly? And write those out as a list in the way that it says, "By saying yes to...," And then insert whatever that is, "I'm saying no to..." And call it out. So that's the first thing. And there's an exercise for you to do as soon as you've listened to this or watch this video. The second thing I want to empower you with as I leave today is learning to say no in a way that people understand. And it's about using a soft no. You see, that instant reaction of someone asked me to do something, so to fight those fears of not being good enough, not belonging, not being loved, I go, "Yes!" And it's in that split second we go, "Why did I say that?" We want to take it back. So what we want to do is we want to have an exercise or a process that gives us some space to think.
So my boss comes in and says, “Hey Grant, I've got this project that I want you to invest some more time in, and it's going to mean that you're going to need to work back 3 or 4 days next week.” Now instead of going, "Yes!" And then regretting it, what I could do differently is go, "Yes, boss, I'd love to see if I can do that. I'll need to get some more information from you as to what that actually entails so that I can see if it's going to work for me. So I've said yes, they've heard that I'm, you know, on board with them in what I'm going to do or what they wanted me to do. But I've got to filter at first and see if it fits with what I've got on. And what that does is two things: it gives me space and something different to do so that I don't just go "Yes!" And it gives me an understanding of what I need to do next and that is check it against my priorities.
So two things that I want you to do going into Christmas is set up a list that says, "When I say yes to this, I'm saying no to this." Both positive and negative. "And when I'm saying no to this, I'm saying yes to this in the same way." And then practise the soft no. Practise saying, "Yes, when I get some more information." And then because you are someone with a high level of personal power, say no boldly because your priorities are what's important to you. That's it for me for another week. I'm off to Melbourne. Have an amazing weekend and a great week coming up, learning to say yes and no appropriately. I'll see you next week.
- Setting Boundaries
Summary:
+ l Just like protecting our home, the same is true with our personal boundaries. We have power to say no.
+ l You CAN set your own boundaries. Boundaries don’t separate you from life; in fact they enrich it. Boundaries give you the freedom to become the person you desire to be.
+ l If you desire to be in charge of your own destiny, you have to learn how to speak up and tell others what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to you.
+ l The first thing you need to do is make some decisions about you and your boundaries. Decision 1: Decide what you want and don’t want from other people. Decision 2: Decide to enlarge your boundaries.
+ l 4 steps to enforcing boundaries in your life. Step 1: Have conversations. Step 2: Tell people what you want and don’t want, and how you feel. Step 3: If you do not see anything change, give a warning. Step 4: If after all this it still remains the same, distance yourself.
+ l You are not here to live up to the expectations of others, and neither are they here to live up to yours. Use assertiveness in balance or seek the the middle path.
+ l The purpose of setting boundaries is not to be separated from others, but to gain the freedom and strength to live your life to its full potential. It is only after we learn how to protect, honour, and love ourselves that we are able to do the same for others.
+ l Join me again next week when we continue the conversation by taking a look at saying Yes and No appropriately.
You have core beliefs that guide the decisions you make. They affect how you interpret the events in your life and they influence the way you think, feel, and behave.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue the conversation around your identity by helping you to rewrite your limiting beliefs.
Last week we looked at how your performance is what you do and your identity is built around who you believe you are.
Your healthy beliefs are serving you well. But, the unrealistic, self-limiting beliefs you are still holding onto, will hold you back from reaching your full potential.
It's important to acknowledge your core beliefs and examine which ones might be inaccurate and unproductive. Only then, can you take the steps required to let go of the beliefs that are limiting your results.
Concluding that you are a loser, a failure, unlikable, or incapable will prevent you from being your best version of you. Even overly optimistic beliefs can be unhealthy. Thinking you're the best at everything you do or that you are above the rules can be just as dangerous to your well-being as an exaggeratedly negative core belief about yourself.
Believing everyone is against you, untrustworthy, or manipulative will make it impossible to develop healthy relationships. Similarly, believing everyone can be trusted or that everyone is a kind person can cause you to be taken advantage of or to get into relationships that aren't good for you.
Assuming that you can't succeed in today's world, or thinking that the world is too dark of a place to ever be happy, will take a huge toll on your life. On the flip-side, minimising social problems and looking at the world through rose-colored glasses isn't helpful either.
There are many different beliefs you have about yourself, other people, and the world around you. And while you're likely to think that all of your beliefs are 100 percent accurate, the truth is, you likely hold onto at least a few core beliefs that are irrational and unproductive.
Beliefs Turn Into Self-Fulfilling Prophecies!
Unhealthy beliefs lead to unhealthy habits. Unhealthy habits produce negative outcomes that ultimately reinforce your unhealthy beliefs. It's a vicious cycle that can be tough to break. But it’s possible!
You can remove your roadblocks and change your results when you rewrite your belief system.
It’s difficult to change your self-limiting beliefs. After all, you've likely held onto them for a long time and believed they were 100 percent accurate. You're also constantly looking for evidence that reinforces your beliefs (while simultaneously ignoring evidence to the contrary).
You're not going to talk yourself out of your beliefs overnight. Telling yourself you're not a loser won't suddenly make you believe deep down inside that you're a winner.
The best way to change your beliefs is to challenge your beliefs head-on. To do that, you need to give up the unhealthy habits that are draining your mental strength. By changing your habits, you can chip away at your unhealthy beliefs a little bit at a time from the ground up.
As you are challenging your beliefs, pay close attention to evidence that suggests your beliefs might not be 100 percent accurate. Slowly, over time, you'll begin to unravel some of your unhealthy core beliefs. Instead of thinking you're too socially awkward to make friends, you might be able to accept that although you are a little awkward at times, some people will like you for that.
The fact is you have to be willing to prove your brain wrong if you want to challenge your beliefs, and I believe you're stronger than you think. Your brain lies to you sometimes. Challenging your beliefs will help your brain see you, other people, and the world in a more accurate light.
Let’s take a look at the 5 Step Process to change your beliefs…
Step 1. Identify Your Limiting Beliefs
Start by writing out a list of your current beliefs and then sort them out so you can set the limiting beliefs apart.
Step 2. Acknowledge Your Beliefs
Give attention to each belief, showing it gratitude for protecting you up until now. Let it know that it has served you well however there was so new information coming to hand that you both need to adopt.
Step 3. Reframe the Belief
Flip each belief with a new and empowering truth. There are 2 ways you can do this. A soft way, or if you are really serious about changing your life for the better, there’s a more direct and in your face kind of way.
“I’m the type of person who…..”, for example, is easier for your brain to believe than coming straight out and saying “I am….”
Step 4. Create New Empowering Beliefs
With your big voice in control, write out a list of new beliefs. Beliefs like, “I am an inspirational leader” and “I am capable of taking my business to the next level”. Whatever you have on your limiting list, flip it into the reverse.
Step 5. Practice and Repeat
Take ownership of the new beliefs by writing and reading them to yourself every day for the next 30 days and watch for the dramatic change in self-belief and performance. Be ruthless with your mind, stepping in when your little voice tries to steal the new truth from you.
Repetition of a new belief allows the brain to unlearn the old belief and relearn the new one. I love the power of Neuroplasticity.
Well, that’s it from me for this week. Join me again next week when we continue the conversation around the topic of Setting Boundaries. See you then.
Have you ever done the best job you could possibly do with something and it still wasn’t good enough? Approval from others is never a guarantee.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week I want to have a conversation with you around The Performance Trap.
Just to set the scene for this week’s chat, let’s recap a few things we have talked about in previous episodes.
We talked about the 3 universal fears that we all perform to avoid:
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the fear of not being good enough,
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the fear of not belonging, and
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the fear of not being loved.
We talked about always caring too much about what other people think of us, needing their permission to feel approved.
When you operate out of fear, it can cause you to behave in ways that are not healthy and helpful at all.
Personal Power is about being OK with who you are becoming, and feeling capable of doing life well.
So let’s go deeper now into what I have found to be one of the biggest roadblocks to having a healthy level of Personal Power.
I call it, THE PERFORMANCE TRAP.
You see, you and I get up every day and PERFORM. That’s what we do. I’m performing right now as a speaker, a trainer and a coach. My performance is designed to empower you, shift mindsets and help you remove roadblocks. That’s OK, my performance has a healthy agenda.
The performance isn’t the issue we need to look at here. The motive for the performance is.
When I do a great job at having this conversation with you, and everyone else watching or listening to me on these episodes, lives are changed for the better. That’s a good thing. But if my motive for this performance is to get you to like me and approve of me, validate my significance or get your APPROVAL, then that’s where the problem starts.
You started this episode by agreeing with me that approval from others is never guaranteed, even when you do your very best performance. When you do get the approval, it fires the pleasure circuits in your brain and you feel good for a moment. When you don’t get the approval however, it makes you feel even less valuable and gives you more evidence that the negative beliefs you have formed about yourself are true. “I’m not good enough, I don’t belong, and I am not loveable”.
Whether you get the approval or not, it affects your IDENTITY.
You see, the PERFORMANCE is about what you DO, your IDENTITY is who you believe you ARE.
What you do and who you are can create totally different emotions. If I yell at my child, something I might DO, that can make me feel guilty. This emotion is a powerful motivator that compels me to DO things differently next time. On the other hand, those same thoughts nursed and rehearsed by that negative inner voice, it can quickly escalate to… “therefore I AM a bad father”. This brings feelings of shame, a debilitating emotion that tears down another building block of a healthy identity.
So when you get the APPROVAL and feel good about yourself, it adds some positive to your inner dialogue and builds up your self-belief and level of self-worth. However, when you fail to get the APPROVAL, your negative self-talk goes into overload and you think it’s a waste of time trying any more because you will never be good enough.
Being addicted to the APPROVAL of others damages your authenticity and destroys your Personal Power. Every time you engage in ‘people pleasing’ performances to fit in and feel worthy, you erode away another piece of your true sense of self. When this happens over time you stop stepping up and the world, especially those closest to you, miss out on your unique gifts and talents and it becomes a never ending cycle that can spiral out of control and cause major issues in your life. I know this oh too well. This was the pattern I ran for many years in my life, and it hurt me, and the people I loved the most.
So, let’s shift gears now and take a look at what I do to help people break free of the Performance Trap, regain their true self and live a life with more fun and fulfilment. To do that, you have to shift your thinking and flip the process upside down.
Now we have IDENTITY on top and that’s where you need to start.
Take responsibility for your own identity, for who you are.
Take practical steps to develop your Personal Power.
Remove the roadblocks of negative belief and self-talk.
Become OK with who you have become so far and set an intention to become who you need to be for the journey ahead.
To do this you will need to tame your inner dialogue and unlearn some of your past conditioning. Having a good coach who will step up and give you support, and keep you accountable, was crucial in this process for me and if you are serious about finally getting free and moving forward from this yourself, then you may need to invest in yourself this way too.
When you work on your identity, and no longer care what other people think about you, you will come to a place called SELF APPROVAL. There is no better place on earth to be. It lifts a heavy load from your shoulders, frees your mind and sets you up for a life with way less conflict and stress. Don’t get me wrong, you’re still teachable and can learn from constructive feedback. But you no longer need external permission to feel good about yourself.
Are you ready to finally move the monkey of approval off your back and take back your self-esteem? As you are nodding yes right now, watch this. Let’s flip the model and get you free once and for all.
So instead of performing now to ‘get’ approval, you now PERFORM ‘out of’ a position of SELF-APPROVAL.
Now getting a pat on the back, a smile or a nod when you do something well can still make you feel good, BUT you no longer need it to feel good about yourself. That responsibility is yours alone and you are liberated from the shackles of fear, doubt and worry. It’s a gift you are worthy of and so are the people around you.
Well, that’s it from me for another week. Join me again next week when we look more closely into your identity and how to build it up. See you then.
Many people have difficulty speaking their truth or lack confidence in their own judgment.
Do you find yourself avoiding confrontations with people, even to get a problem resolved or when the confrontation might be best in the long run?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week I want to start a conversation with you around the crucial competency called Personal Power.
Personal Power is about having a healthy sense of self-confidence and an inner knowing that you can meet life’s challenges and live the life you choose. It’s the ability to have the difficult conversations in life, and to speak your truth quietly, sincerely, assertively and appropriately.
When you lack this competency, you might avoid going to the heart of an issue, hesitate to try new things, have difficulty defending their ideas, avoid challenges, give in too easily, question your own ability and often feel powerless.
You may avoid taking risks or chances and be unable to set boundaries or demand respectful treatment from others.
This was true for me for a major portion of my life and it held me back from becoming all I could be. The beliefs I formed about myself through experiences and negative influence from others, created roadblocks to the release of my full potential.
Having been rejected several times as a child, I formed a belief system that kept reminding me that I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t belong and wasn’t loveable. If I lowered my expectation then I lowered the risk of being hurt, so I thought. This eroded my true identity, and stripped away my authentic self, as I tried so hard to be who I thought others needed me to be. I had a very low sense of self worth but I put on a mask of confidence and it was really challenging to keep up the charade.
So what about you? What is it that is holding you back?
Personal Power is one of the 26 competencies I work with people on, in the area of Social and Emotional Intelligence, and my experience tells me that it is the baseline competency that underpins all the others. Without Personal Power, your unhealthy habits will deter you from developing and using the others so it’s where I start with every person or team that I develop.
So let’s take at look at what this empowering skill-set can give you and how to start developing it.
Let’s start by understanding the context of the word power. It’s about internal power and not power over others in that command and control kind of way. It’s all about feeling empowered and in control.
When you have a healthy level of Personal Power, you have a calm inner conviction about who you are and your ability to get the things you want and need in life. You believe you can set the direction of your life, and you do.
You are able to distinguish between the things you have control over in life, and those you do not, and you don’t stress over things.
You define yourself from the inside out (“I’m capable,” “I’m good at managing setbacks,” “I’m pretty good at managing conflicts,” “I’m creative”) rather than from the outside in (“I’m a CEO,” “I’m a banker,” “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a doctor”)
Instead of believing in fate, you make things happen, and you feel in control of your life. You know what you want and you go after because you are confident in yourself.
You can speak your truth, give voice to your convictions and set healthy boundaries.
So on a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being perfect with no room for improvement, how would you rate yourself on the Personal Power scale right now?
These days I fluctuate between 8 and 9.
How committed are you to increasing that number and giving yourself permission to realise your full potential?
I would love to help you but only if you want it more for yourself than I want it for you.
There are concepts and strategies that you can learn and implement that I can teach you and starting next week we will go deeper on a few of those.
So, that’s it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue the conversation by looking into the damage done by constantly trying to fit in and get the approval of others. See you then.
Social Resilience is an emerging, but not a magical, property. People who have diverse interests, skills, and resources, and who can work together, make it more likely that the group as a whole can respond quickly to unforeseen problems and challenges.
Hi this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around resilience by looking at how our interpersonal effectiveness can help us bounce through challenges.
So what is Social Resilience?
Social Resilience is way more than having great friendships and embracing the collaborative exchange of ideas. Although trust is essential, social resilience is not about warm hugs, unconditional positivity, and inclusive sentiments.
Social Resilience recognises that, as a social being, you work, think, and excel in groups and teams, as well as individually. Lions hunt in packs, and by doing so they are able to bring down prey that would be impossible to conquer alone.
Human civilisation hinges on the specialisation, differentiation, and use of individual gifts and talents so that we, as a collective, can achieve far more than we could by our own efforts.
Socially resilient individuals value diverse perspectives and recognise that many projects require collaboration with people with differing backgrounds, values, and priorities.
Any team would have little chance of success if all their team members possessed identical features and skills.
Social Resilience implies not merely acceptance of diversity, but rather the intention to incorporate diverse perspectives into group activity for the creative adaptations that such diversity predisposes.
Less resilient people seek to shun the idea of diversity by excluding individuals who differ, or by pushing a message of uniformity.
Surrounding yourself with a lot of mini-me’s can be self-affirming but it hinders your ability to adapt to new challenges and problems or to withstand or recover quickly from very difficult conditions. People are not unique in this regard.
The core of Social Resilience is to celebrate differences, accept and give attention to others, practicing mutual respect and care for others, and being responsive to their needs.
Here are 3 simple ideas around how to practice being more socially resilient:
Number 1, expand your social network. Meet new people who are different to you in their experience and interests. Expand your comfort zone when it comes to inviting yourself along to community and networking gatherings where you do not yet know anyone.
Number 2, open your mind to differing points of view and learn to contribute to healthy debates around topics of conversation, without taking it personally or in a competitive way.
Number 3, let others lead your team meetings and sit back and learn what others think and feel, contributing more as a part of the team, rather than the leader of it. It’s mind-blowing what you can learn when you give yourself permission to not have all the answers.
Well, that’s it from me again this week. I hope there was at least one thing that caught your attention and gave you something to work on in the days ahead.
Join me again next week where we will start a new conversation around the fascinating subject of Personal Power.
One of the most critical skills needed to navigate the complexity of our modern world is the ability to calm your frantic mind when you encounter negative experiences.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach and this week I want to continue our conversation by sharing the secrets of Emotional Resilience.
Today’s leaders, more than ever, need the capacity to maintain cognitive function in the face of major stress and pressure.
More often than not, you may feel overwhelmed and depleted, unable to think straight and direct creative energy towards problem solving and ideation.
You carry the emotional baggage from the last situation into the next, causing you to behave out of character and damaging your relationships.
You feel worn down, unable to cope, disillusioned and disengaged. I know this from my own personal journey and it destroys self confidence and makes it even harder to sustain your performance.
So, how do we shift this around and see some different results? We develop our Emotional Resilience.
Emotional Resilience builds your intrinsic motivation, allowing you to do what you do for the personal reward and not for the external one. It drives positive behaviour that produces exceptional results.
It’s an inner force, carrying you through the downtimes in life, providing strength to power through the storms.
Emotional Resilience is an art of living with self-belief, self-compassion and enhanced cognition, helping you to bounce back from stressful situations without it affecting your internal motivation.
When you have Emotional Resilience you perceive adversity as temporary and you constantly evolve through pain and trauma. You accept things as they really are, continuing to grow through them.
There are 3 key components that help or hinder your Emotional Resilience:
- Cognition - this is the way you ‘think’ during a situation or event.
They say that “As a man, or woman, thinks, so they are”. Your thoughts breed beliefs and your beliefs guide who you become.
- Perception - this is how you ‘analyse’ a situation and form conclusions about what it means and what will happen.
Your perception is your reality. Even if in reality it’s not true, you can make it true for you. How you deconstruct a situation will surely determine your next moves, if you move at all.
- Action - your response to it.
It’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s what you do in that situation that will determine the outcome.
So how can we prepare for the situations that lie ahead of us?
Here are 5 areas to work on that will help you build your Emotional Resilience, so you can bounce through the stresses of life and be happier and healthier along the journey.
Number 1: Self- Awareness - this is having clarity around who you are, your strengths, your areas that need development, your thoughts, your beliefs, your feelings, your triggers, what motivates you and what depletes you.
Number 2: Perseverance - your ability to persist and be diligent in the face of adversity and set backs.
Number 3: Emotional Management - your ability to know what emotions you are feeling and why, understanding the thought processes you go through and the messages that are being sent to you from your body.
Number 4: Agile Mindset - this is a set of attitudes that support a flexible working environment. They include the ability to adapt and change, collaboration, taking ownership, delivering value and continuous improvement.
Number 5: Interpersonal Relationships - having strong interpersonal relationships is both a pre-requisite and a by product of Emotional Resilience. Doing the journey alongside people who have your back is priceless in today’s fast paced world.
There are many things we could add to the list however these are my top 5. What else would you add? I would love to see some thoughts below in the comments.
Over the next few weeks we will cover some of these in detail but for now, just flag them for reflection in your quiet time and assess where you are strong and what you need to work on. Drop some comments and questions in the comments below so I can scratch where you are itching as we continue this journey of incremental improvement together. I’m here to serve you so let me know what you need help with right now.
If this is helping you make some positive change, make sure you subscribe and share it with your friends. If you could do with a little more help, grab your copy of my eBook and video series “Stress Reduction Maximiser”.
Well, that’s it from me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue the conversation by unpacking the power of Social Resilience. See you then.
As we have been chatting about over the past couple of weeks, Resilience is basically the process of being able to “bounce back” and adapt well in the face of adversity, difficulties or trauma. It makes you stronger, and better able to handle the life challenges that will inevitably come your way.
Resilient people see challenges as opportunities for growth. They realise that while they can’t change what happened, they absolutely can decide how they will respond to it.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation by focusing in on the important topic of Mental Resilience.
We live in a vastly different world today to the one I grew up in. Everything moves at a much faster pace. Technology exacerbates the constancy and speed of change.
We all feel the need to be doing 6 things at once so we can get it all done. Our brain is working in overload as we switch from one thing to another.
It can lead to feelings of overwhelm, exhaustion, and sometimes even feeling helpless and powerless to overcome.
All this, coupled with financial, relational, health and social uncertainties, is taking a serious toll on your Mental Health.
It’s time to take stock and take back control!
Mental Resilience is your ability to sustain focus and attention, mental flexibility, and the capacity for integrating multiple points of view. It increases your capacity to perform in a sustainable way, getting more done with less conflict and stress.
So, how do we cultivate Mental Resilience?
Just like we have already discussed in our last few conversations, taking care of yourself physically is step number 1. Sleeping well, eating well, and looking after yourself physically, these are the foundations of resilience. If you haven’t been with me on the journey over the last few weeks, make sure you go back and check out those episodes as well.
It’s never about trying to make hard situations and uncomfortable feeling go away. It’s about taking a step back and looking at things objectively, putting them into perspective. When you are able to remove the fog and see things more clearly, you can then take more conscious, intentional action.
See challenges as an opportunity to grow. You cannot change what has happened but you can choose how it affects you and how you respond to it. Positive action gives you evidence that you have at least some control over a situation. When you are a part of the solution, your actions moving forward can and will make a difference.
Embrace the uncertainty of change as nothing is forever. Change is a normal part of life and the sooner you accept that, the more resilient you will become. Instead of trying to stop or resist the change, direct your energy on the aspects of the change that are in your control.
Speak well to yourself. Learn to catch yourself when your inner dialogue is spreading propaganda and trying to convince you that you are doomed and have lost any chance of control. Healthy self-talk is a key ingredient in Mental Resilience. Retrain your inner voice by reframing your negative thoughts into more empowering ones. Remind yourself that you are human and we all make mistakes, are continually learning and can get up, dust ourselves off and have another go.
Set incremental goals. Instead of looking at the overwhelming big picture, focus on the next step. To do this, ask yourself; “What is ‘one’ thing I can do right now to move forward?”. Breaking it down like this makes it seem surmountable and every little step not only move you closer to the overall objective, it builds self-confidence and self-belief which in turn makes you feel a sense of personal power over your life.
Stay connected and build strong alliances. Enjoying healthy relationships go a very long way towards developing resilience as resilient people look to their friends for help when they are navigating tough times in their journey. Having people that you trust in your corner, people who will fight alongside you and sit down and chat with you in these tough times, will help you feel more positive and hopeful about your situation.
Everyone of us have differing levels of mental toughness, however no matter where you are on the resilience scale right now, cultivating your resiliency by practicing these techniques little by little will see your confidence, happiness and overall Mental Resilience increase.
Well, that’s it from me for another week, join me again next week when we continue the conversation around Emotional Resilience.
Our work can involve physical demands that can certainly take their toll; working long hours, working indoors, travel, doing repetitive tasks, heavy-lifting, a fast-paced environment, sitting at a computer for long periods of time…the list goes on.
All of these things require varying levels of physical resilience, not just so that you can get through the day, but also so that you can feel that the work we do is truly valuable. It’s important to keep a close eye on signs of fatigue and make shifts in your environment and work conditions as needed so that your quality of life is not negatively impacted.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week I want to have a conversation with you around Physical Resilience.
Physical Resilience is your ability to respond to physical stress, specifically, stress that acutely disrupts normal physiological homeostasis. It is the ability to quickly resolve unexpected or unusual environmental, medical or clinical challenges.
Physical Resilience can cause stress which creates various side effects to your health, which differ with every individual’s situation and environment.
Vibrant health can remain elusive until you take the time to pay attention and listen to your body. The body knows what is good for it and what is not.
This past week, I myself have had to really take stock of what I have been putting my body through lately. Several overseas trips, changing time zones, inadequate sleep patterns, sitting in planes and airport lounges, all these things have left me feeling a little worse for wear.
Right now I am sitting in my hotel in beautiful San Diego, California, waiting to go to the airport for a long journey back to Sydney. I’m tired, my body hurts, and to be honest, even though I cannot wait to get home to my family, I am not looking forward to what’s ahead over the next 24 hours.
So this morning, before I did anything else, I went for a long walk around the city and the bay to move my body and get my 10,000 steps before breakfast.
That’s enough about me, let’s have a chat about you.
Physical resilience is allowing your body to be fit and adapt to stress and the challenges in your life.
There are so many ways for Physical Resilience to be developed and you must choose the correct path for you; but it may be – long walks, power walking, running, classes in the gym, any sport or some action to both improve and strengthen our cardiovascular system to get the oxygen and nutrients into your muscles which is proven to give you more energy.
What can you do to ensure you maintain your Physical Resilience? Here are a few ideas to get you started.
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Sleeping well is necessary to respond to the physical stress. If you missed my episode on Sleep a few weeks ago, take the time to go back and check it out.
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Exercise improves blood flow and oxygen levels in the brain, it also encourages the release of the brain chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine. They are referred to as “the happy pill!”
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There are many benefits of practicing yoga, pilates, meditation and mindfulness. All your attention is focussed which allows you to observe your body’s reaction as well as your thoughts to gain control and accept positive thoughts. Working on some form of mindfulness first thing in the morning can alleviate stress in your body and if practiced at night can help with a good nights’ sleep.
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Being involved in sports and fitness is fun, social, inspiring, challenging, and for the most part – really good for us. Being mindful of your body and keeping control on a competitive nature is vitally important here though or you can do more harm than good. I know from experience with this one.
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The body must have adequate nutrition and the functional capability to utilise that nutrition; as well the body must excel in eliminating waste. Eating well is therefore extremely important in the Physical Resilience equation.
We humans are complicated so for you to get through those tough physical or strenuous times, physically resilient people possess self-regulation, adaptability, positivity, and control.
It’s not always about peak performance or competition, it’s simply the importance of challenging yourself physically whenever possible; it’s simply exhilarating to do something you just didn’t know you could.
Finally, you need to consider the mind-body connection to your Physical Resilience beyond your medical, physical or nutritional needs. There are social, psychological and even spiritual factors that regularly impact your Physical Resilience.
Well that’s it from me for this week. Join me again next week as we continue the conversation by going deeper on Mental Resilience.
When something doesn’t go so well in your world, do you tend to bounce back or fall apart?
You can navigate change and bounce back from adversity by learning skills and strategies to become more resilient.
Hi this is Grant Herbert, International Influence and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to have a conversation with you about resilience.
Resilience is all about you harnessing the inner strength to help you rebound from setback or challenge. When you lack resilience, you might dwell on problems, feel like a victim, become overwhelmed or turn to unhealthy coping strategies…
Let’s be clear here, Resilience won't make your problems go away but resilience can give you the ability to see beyond them, find more enjoyment in life and better handle your stress. If you aren't as resilient as you'd like to be, you can develop skills to become more resilient…
And that’s where we are going to focus over the next few weeks.
There are many roadblocks that stand in the way of resilience that you need to become aware of before you add new skills. Let’s take a look at some of them and see what rings true for you.
Unhealthy habits, mindsets, thoughts, self-talk and behaviour. They all get in the way.
Fearing what might happen if things change and you have to expand your current comfort zone.
Having a low level of emotional understanding and not being able to respond to events in a healthy way.
This can all leave you vulnerable to distress and burnout.
Resilience can help protect you from various mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. Resilience can also help offset factors that increase the risk of mental health conditions, such as being bullied or previous trauma. If you have an existing mental health condition, being resilient can improve your ability to cope. By the way, please seek help from your health professional before employing any strategies that you hear from me.
Here are some of the results that you can have when you overcome the roadblocks.
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You can go from unhealthy habits to exercising self-care
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You see things as they really are, keeping them in perspective.
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You become more able to change direction without breaking
- And you bounce back when you are stretched.
All this comes from Resilience.
Resilience is the ability to roll with the punches.
When stress, adversity or trauma strikes, you still experience anger, grief and pain, but you're able to keep functioning — both physically and psychologically. However, resilience isn't about toughing it out, being stoic or going it alone.
In fact, being able to reach out to others for support is a key component of being resilient.
Let’s unpack what it takes to be resilient and then chat about some things that have helped me personally go from stressed to strong.
Resilience is perseverance and diligence in the face of setbacks and there are 5 crucial ingredients to becoming more resilient.
Let’s take a look at these ingredients and set an intention for where we are going to go over the next few weeks.
Number 1 is Getting More Clarity
Number 2 is Taking Care of yourself
Number 3 is Building your Confidence
Number 4 is Staying in Control and
number 5 is maintaining strong Connections.
So where do you see yourself on the RESILIENCE scale? Is this something you could benefit from working on? I would love to read your thoughts and questions in the comments below.
So that’s it for another week. Over the coming weeks we will continue the conversation around resilience and go deeper on the 5 crucial ingredients. See you then!
Do you ever ask yourself “Why am I thinking this way?” or “Why am I behaving this way?” I know I do. There is so much empowerment in knowing the answer to these questions.
Hi this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today’s I want to have a conversation with you around the invaluable competency of ‘Self Awareness’.
There have been many times in my career where I was confused about the things I was saying or doing, and how the way I saw myself was constantly different to the perception of others.
My lack of understanding caused me, and those who I worked with, a lot of pain and suffering. My inability to see the signs, oblivious to what was really going on with my inner game, made it feel like driving down the road at night with my lights off.
Navigating in the dark creates collisions and conflict, but knowing why is the key ingredient in any form of change and it takes a higher level of Self Awareness.
Self Awareness will empower you to recognise and understand the links between what you believe, your thoughts, self-talk and what you say and do. It removes the confusion and creates clarity and certainty.
So what is Self Awareness?
The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “Conscious knowledge of one's own character and feelings” and you receive many benefits in your career, and every area of your life, when you develop these skills for yourself.
When you see the signs you can make the adjustments you need to bring your thoughts and behaviour back on track so you can achieve the results you want. It gives you a start point for positive growth and change with a roadmap to follow, allowing you to navigate with confidence.
Self Awareness is knowing your internal states, your preferences, your resources and intuitions. It brings the inside out, shining the light on you strengths and shortcomings.
So how do you increase your current level of Self Awareness? Let’s unpack 3 big ideas around this that have helped me, and the thousands of others I have had the privilege of working with in this area.
Number 1: Invest in your own self reflection - You know you better than anyone else so take charge and ask yourself the difficult questions.
Just like any medical condition, diagnosis is critical before you can make the changes you need to get back to full health. Make Self Awareness a priority, allowing space for forward focussed reflection throughout the day. It may help you to journal your thoughts so you can notice when certain things are more likely to surface or what people trigger your unhealthy thoughts and behaviours. Recognise patterns in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Call yourself out when you see yourself indulging in negative self talk that can spiral into emotionally charged reactions.
Number 2: Be open to feedback - Every one of us has ‘Blind Spots’, things we cannot or will not see in ourselves that stands out in a spotlight for others. Self Awareness is a process that involves others, trusting them, being vulnerable and teachable, recognising that what they see is their perception of reality. Listen to learn, suspending judgement and the need to defend. It’s a bit like my mum making me take a large spoonful of castor oil each day when I was a kid. It tasted terrible but it was good for my inner health. Asking others for feedback is a bit like that. It may not feel good at the time but it’s good for you, and the people around you.
Number 3: Use what you learn - Awareness without action is pointless. In fact, it can be even more frustrating to know things about yourself and do nothing with it. The only value you receive from your newfound level of Self Awareness comes in making the change it illuminates for you. Set an intention to make incremental change over the long term, avoiding band aid fixes that never last. Get some people around you who can give you the support and accountability you need to make it happen. A family member, a colleague or even a coach like me. Someone who cares about you and wants you to succeed. Self Awareness is not a one time deal, it’s something you have to condition yourself to walk in every day.
People who have Self Awareness are emotionally aware, they accurately assess their abilities and they have a strong sense of self-worth. This translates into more satisfying relationships and a career where you have more influence, make a bigger impact and receive a higher income. It’s time to become more aware!
So that’s it from me for another week. Next week we are celebrating Mental Health Week by kicking off a series on Resilience. See you then.
The mental health of corporate Australia shows almost one third of people are suffering from some form of mental illness.
Of those, 36% were suffering from depression, 33% from anxiety and 31% from stress.
A decade ago only one in five Australians were found to be suffering from a mental illness. It’s time to turn things around.
Hi this is Grant Herbert, international speaker and sustainable performance coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around stress by helping you get to a point where you feel more empowered to ask for the help you need.
I’ve had a couple of weeks where I have had to take my own medicine as a lot of travel and being unwell had really taken it’s toll. That’s why I missed our conversation last week and am coming to you a week later. I am currently in the beautiful city of New Delhi in India where I am about to run a 3 day leadership intensive with the top 100 leaders of a very large corporate.
So let’s have a chat about asking for help.
Mental illness appears to have increased by a third in the last decade. Depression is now the primary mental health disorder.
This is the first time depression has exceeded anxiety which has traditionally been twice as common as depression. Australia’s last official figures list anxiety at 14.4% and depression at 6.2%. The program, using data from 3,500 employees across 41 organisations from a range of industries, was conducted by the mental health technology group Medibio.
Now studies and statistics are one thing. We can dismiss them because of sample size or many other rationalisations we choose to use to avoid the issue. However I have the privilege of working with thousands of individuals and teams in these organisations every year and I can attest first hand that this is definitely a true reflection of what is going on right now.
People are hurting and therefore so are their families and the bottom line of the companies they work in.
A couple of weeks ago we celebrated RUOK day. A special day set aside each year where we are encouraged to ask our fellow humans how things are, and hope they respond in a way that we feel empowered to deal with.
Well my question is, what do we do on the other 364 days?
We take responsibility for our own well-being and ask others for help.
Now I know why a lot of you do not feel comfortable to do this. You feel that asking for help means you failed or you aren’t good enough. That’s what held me back before my burnout forced me to ask.
But I don’t want that for you so as we round off this series on Stress, let me encourage you with 7 key strategies that will help you escape the statistics and enjoy a more healthy and happy life.
It’s time for you to grow your support network.
1. Cast a wide net.
When it comes to your social support, one size doesn't fit all. You may not have someone you can confide in about everything — and that’s okay. Maybe you have a colleague you can talk to about problems at work, and a neighbour who lends an ear when you have difficulties with your kids. Look to different relationships for different kinds of support. But remember to look to people you can trust and count on, to avoid disappointing, negative interactions that can make you feel worse.
2. Be proactive.
Often people expect others to reach out to them, and then feel rejected when people don’t go out of their way to do so. To get the most out of your social relationships, you have to make an effort. Make time for friends and family. Reach out to lend a hand or just say hello. If you’re there for others, they’ll be more likely to be there for you. And in fact, when it comes to longevity, research suggests that providing social support to friends and family may be even more important than receiving it.
- Take advantage of technology.
It’s nice to sit down with a friend face-to-face, but it isn't always possible. Luckily, technology makes it easier than ever before to stay connected with loved ones far away. Write an email, send a text message or make a date for a video chat. Don’t rely too heavily on digital connections, however. Face-to-face interactions are definitely the most beneficial.
- Follow your interests.
Do you like to hike, sing, make stuff, play sport, get involved in local events? You’re more likely to connect with people who like the things you like. Join a club, sign up for a class or take on a volunteer position that will allow you to meet others who share your interests. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t make friends overnight. Try to enjoy the experience as you get to know others over time.
- Seek out peer support.
If you’re dealing with a specific stressful situation — such as caring for a family member or dealing with a chronic illness — you may not find the support you need from your current network. Consider joining a support group to meet others who are dealing with similar challenges.
- Improve your social skills.
If you feel awkward in social situations and just don’t know what to say, try asking simple questions about the other person to get the ball rolling. If you’re shy, it can be less intimidating to get to know others over shared activities — such as a bike ride or a cooking class — rather than just hanging out and talking. If you feel particularly anxious in social situations, consider talking to a professional coach with experience in social anxiety and social-skills training.
- Ask for help quickly.
If you lack a strong support network and aren’t sure where to start, there are resources you can turn to. Places of worship, community centres, local libraries, refugee and immigrant groups, neighbourhood health clinics and local branches of national mental health and support organisations may be able to help you identify services, support groups and other programs in your community.
So that’s a wrap on this current conversation series on stress. I hope you have a few take aways that you are committed to implementing in your own life. Thank you for the privilege of being a part of your journey so far and if you haven’t yet grabbed your copy of my free resources on stress reduction then CLICK HERE and get started now. You deserve to live a life with less stress and conflict.
Well that’s it from me this week. Next week we will be back with a conversation around self awareness. See you then.
Stress is a normal part of life. Many events that happen to you and around you and many things that you do yourself put stress on your body.
Hi this is Grant Herbert, international speaker and sustainable performance coach, and I want to continue our conversation around stress this week by looking at Physical Stress.
Stress is any change in the environment that requires your body to react and adjust its response. Your body reacts to these changes with mental, emotional and physical responses.
So how does Stress affect your health?
Let’s face it, the human body is designed to experience stress and then respond to it.
Positive Stress, called ”eustress”, comes from events such as getting a promotion or being given greater responsibilities at work.
Negative Stress, called “distress", is when you face continuous challenges without relief or relaxation between them. As a result, you become overworked and stress-related tension builds.
Distress can lead to physical symptoms like headaches, digestive problems, elevated blood pressure, chest pain and sleep disorders.
Research suggests that distress can also bring on or worsen certain symptoms or diseases.
Stress also becomes very harmful when people use alcohol, tobacco or other drugs to try to relieve their stress.
Unfortunately, instead of relieving the stress and returning the body to a relaxed state, these substances tend to keep the body in a stressed state and cause more problems.
Consider the following statistics from the Mayo Clinic:
- 43% percent of all adults suffer adverse health effects from stress.
- 75 to 90% of all doctor's visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints.
- Stress can play a part in problems such as asthma, arthritis, heart problems, skin conditions, depression and anxiety.
- The lifetime prevalence of an emotional disorder is more than 50%, often due to chronic, untreated stress reactions.
Stress symptoms may be affecting your health, even though you might not realise it. You may think illness is to blame for that irritating headache, your frequent insomnia or your decreased productivity at work, but stress may actually be the cause.
In Australia, 1 in 5 people suffer distress to the point of a mental illness. In some occupations like law, it’s often quoted as high as 1 in 2.
You must act now to manage your stress
If you have stress symptoms, taking steps to manage your stress can have many health benefits.
Explore some stress management strategies such as:
- Getting regular physical activity
- Practicing relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, tai chi or massage
- Keeping a sense of humour
- Spending time with family and friends
- Setting aside time for hobbies, such as reading a book or listening to music.
You are better served when you find active ways to manage your stress.
Inactive ways to manage stress, such as watching television, surfing the internet or playing video games, may seem relaxing but they may increase your stress over the long term.
Be sure to get plenty of sleep and eat a healthy, balanced diet. Avoid tobacco use, excess caffeine and alcohol, and the use of illegal substances.
It might be time for you to ask for some help.
If you're not sure if stress is the cause or if you've taken steps to control your stress but your symptoms continue, see your doctor or other healthcare provider who may want to check for other potential causes.
Consider seeing a professional coach, counsellor or therapist, who can help you identify sources of your stress and learn new coping tools.
It’s time to take a stand against your stress and make some changes now, instead of waiting too long like I did and my body just gave up.
Let me help you learn from my experience.
Grab your copy of my eBook and then register for the FREE Stress Reduction Maximiser online course where I unpack my 3 hot tips to reduce your stress fast.
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Well that’s it from me for another week. Join me again next week where we will continue the conversation around this silent killer called Stress. See you then.
Putting yourself first for a change is vital if you are going to sustain your performance and reduce your stress.
Hi this is Grant Herbert, speaker and sustainable performance trainer and coach, and I want to continue our conversation around stress this week by unpacking the topic of SELF CARE.
You’ve probably heard this before during the safety briefing before take off. “If the cabin pressure drops, masks like these will drop down from the overhead locker above. Immediately pull down on the mask to start the flow of oxygen. Fit the mask over you nose and mouth and breath normally. Secure the mask by pulling on the two ends of this strap. Oxygen will still flow, even if the bag doesn’t inflate”
Now the first thing you are probably thinking right now is ‘this guy flies a lot”, and I do, but what’s really important here is what they say next…
“Fit your mask first before assisting other guests”.
There is so much power in that final statement and it is the framework for the whole concept of self-care. Why? Because you cannot help anyone if you are not in a fit state yourself. It all starts with you!
Life is a delicate balance between helping others with self taken care of.
It’s like all you mums out there. You’re making dinner and there isn’t enough for everyone so all of a sudden you’re not hungry. You make sure your family eats, and you go without for them, because you love them and you see it as your role to nuture and look after them. But here’s the problem with that. Your motive for doing this is pure and admirable but the action itself is very counter-intuitive. You see if mum doesn’t eat and mum falls off the perch, no one eats.
Self-care is anything you do deliberately in order to take care of your mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it's a simple concept in theory, I pretty sure it's something you very often overlook. I know I did.
So let’s have a look at a few tips you can use to exercise a little more self care:
- Prioritise and block out some ‘me time’ every week
- Eat well, sleep well and move well everyday
- Say NO to others to say YES to your self-care
- Get into nature and switch off from the pressures of work
- Turn off your phone and give yourself permission to disconnect and read a real book
- Simplify your schedule and do what you can to de-clutter
- Hang out with someone who you love. If they're too far away, give them a phone call
- Put on your favourite dance music, and shake your body
- Stop for 10 minutes and jot down your thoughts in a journal
- Learn something new that is just for you and not your work
- Be OK with just being still without achieving anything
These are just some of the things that work for me. Drop your thoughts in the comments below as to what you would add to the list.
The first thing you need to do before starting out this process of self-care is get to a position where you feel worthy of giving yourself this priority attention. Work on your identity and stop caring about what others think of you so much. If you missed my video on Performance Stress a couple of weeks ago, go back and watch it and it will help you to do this.
Once you start taking better care of yourself physically, emotionally and mentally, you will be in a much better position to handle what goes on in your day to day world. This will reduce your stress levels and help you manage your responses in a healthier way.
Well that’s it from me for another week. Let’s continue the conversation next week when we talk about physical stress.
If you are enjoying this series then I would love to hear about how it’s helping you s leave a comment below. Share it on your social media so we can help more people, use the #stressreductionmaximiser, and if you haven’t grabbed your eBook copy yet, CLICK HERE and get one.
You are worthy of a less stressful life…you just need to believe that and take the action required. See you next week.
The inability to understand and manage your emotions is a major issue in today’s fast-paced, superficially connected world.
Hi, this Grant Herbert and I want to continue our conversation around stress this week by taking a look at one of the crucial areas you need to get on top of if you are to reduce and manage your stress, and that’s how you navigate your emotions.
Let be really clear. Humans are emotional beings and not robots.
You respond to things emotionally. You make decisions on emotion.
Marketers are taught to connect with you emotionally.
Navigating your relationships with others can often be very emotional and stressful.
Your emotions are present in every waking moment of your day, so while some people subscribe to the myth that talking about emotions is just warm and fuzzy, or labelling them ‘soft skills’, is ridiculous.
Some people even believe that they can check their emotions in at the door when they get to work and only work on logic. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. It is literally impossible to do that. You are an emotional being.
It would be like you trying to leave your arms at the door or your brain. Emotions are a necessary and powerful ingredient of our make up, and we need to know how to embrace them for the service they give us and manage our response to them.
When we are out of whack emotionally, our thoughts can lead us to react and behave erratically. This can cause you to feel more anxious, fearful, anguish and worried.
This adds to your stress levels and can become quite disruptive and debilitating in daily life. Emotional stress can be particularly painful, challenging to deal with, and can take more of a toll that many other forms of stress.
So, learning to be aware of your emotions, and have healthy strategies to manage your behaviour, is paramount in the quest to reduce and manage your stress.
Perhaps one of the more challenging aspects of coping with emotional stress is the feeling of being unable to change the situation. If you can't change your stress levels by eliminating the stressful situation, you can certainly work on your emotional response to it.
This is a set of skills I learned, and now teach, in the arena of Social and Emotional Intelligence. They are definitely the game-changer.
Here are some exercises you can use to help you reduce your emotional stress:
• Practice Mindfulness. When you feel emotional stress, it's also often experienced as physical pain like a 'heavy' feeling in the chest, an unsettled feeling in the stomach or a dull headache. It's common to try to escape these feelings, but it can actually be helpful to go deeper into the experience and use mindfulness to really notice where these emotional responses are felt physically. Some people notice that the pain seems more intense before dissipating, but then they feel the emotional and physical pain is lessened. Give it a go and see what happens when you try it?
• Distract Yourself. We used to think that if we didn't express every emotion we felt they would show themselves in other ways. In some ways, this is true. There are benefits to examining your emotional states to learn from what your emotions are trying to tell you, and repressing your emotions in unhealthy ways can bring other problems. However, it's also been discovered that distracting yourself from emotional pain with emotionally healthy alternatives — such as a feel-good movie, fun activities with friends, or a satisfying mental challenge, can lessen emotional pain and help you feel better.
• Take Some Time Out. If you find that emotional stress and rumination creep into your awareness quite a bit, and distraction doesn't work, try scheduling some time — an hour a day, perhaps — where you allow yourself to think about your situation fully and brainstorm possible solutions, concoct hypothetical possibilities, replay upsetting exchanges, or whatever you feel the emotional urge to do.
• Practice Meditation. Meditation is very helpful for dealing with a variety of stressors, and emotional stress is definitely in the category of stressors that meditation helps with. It allows you to take a break from rumination by actively redirecting your thoughts, and provides practice in choosing thoughts, which can help eliminate some emotional stress in the long term.
• Talk to a Professional. If you find your level of emotional stress interfering with your daily activities or threatening your well-being in other ways, you may consider seeing a therapist for help working through emotional issues.
Whatever the cause of your emotional stress, you can work toward reducing and managing it and feeling better in the process, without losing the supportive 'messages' that your emotions are bringing you.
That’s it from me this week. Join me again next week when we keep the conversation going around the benefits of self-care.
I’m on a quest to help as many people as I can to reduce and manage their stress, so make sure you grab a copy of my eBook by clicking the button below.
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See you next week!
Every day that we pretend to be someone we are not, to gain the approval of others, we slowly but surely erode away another chunk of our true identity.
Hi there, this is Grant Herbert, and I want to continue our conversation around stress this week by exposing one of the biggest causes of stress out there; always seeking the approval of others.
Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying; “What other people think of you is none of your business”. She went on to say; “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. These are life defining statements that you all need to embrace if you are to reduce and manage your stress.
If you are serious about getting your stress under control then it’s time to escape “The Performance Trap” and stop letting what others think or say about you push the wrong buttons and cause you to feel stressed.
Even when you put on the best performance you can, with the hope that you gain acceptance and significance in the eyes of another, there is no guarantee, that you will receive their approval. When you get it you feel great, but when you don’t you can be left feeling deflated and frustrated.
That leads to unhealthy self-talk which creates even more doubt and uncertainty of your worth. You might have an internal dialogue that says things like,
“Why am I never good enough?” or “What do I need to do to please these people?”
The result is that your identity takes a beating and you feel even worse about yourself.
You must remember though that a performance is something you DO but your identity is who you believe you ARE.
Let me give you an example.
If I get upset and raise my voice toward my teenager, in a desperate hope to get respect and compliance, I immediately feel uneasy in the pit of my stomach. Instantaneous remorse makes me start to question my actions because I love my child and it’s not my intention to take out my frustration on them. I know what I did was not good behaviour and want to do better next time. That’s OK, it’s healthy to recognise when something you DO needs to change. The problem is when you nurse and rehearse the feelings of guilt for not doing a good job in the situation, you can go from “I yelled at my child” (something I did) to “I am a bad parent” (someone I believe I am).
The way to escape this performance trap and becoming authentic again is through SELF approval.
You see, ‘performing’ is not the problem; it’s the motive for doing it that is.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing others around your gifts and talents. It’s even OK to like getting a word of affirmation or a pat on the back in the process. The trap is set however when the underlying reason we are performing is to get the approval, be liked and accepted.
So instead of running this old strategy that creates a lot of stress, let me teach you a more resourceful one that has changed my life and the lives of many people I was impacting. It was the main mindset and behaviour change that helped me get my stress under control again.
Here it is in 3 simple steps.
Step 1: Take sole responsibility for defining your worth,
Step 2: Engage in positive self talk-that builds your identity, and
Step 3: Perform from a position of SELF APPROVAL, rather than seeking it from others.
When you decide to do this, and then actually take the steps, you will find that the removal of the internal conflict created by The Performance trap will help you dramatically reduce your stress.
That’s it from me this week. Remember to reach out if you need some help with this.
Let’s keep the conversation going next week where we will discuss your emotional stress. See you then.
P.S.: If you still haven’t got your copy of my ‘Stress Reduction Maximiser’, CLICK HERE and grab one now.
Hey everyone, this week is ‘Sleep Awareness Week’ so I wanted to direct our stress conversation there to give us a head start on reducing our stress.
Sleep deprivation is one of the major contributors to stress in our constantly connected world.
A recent report here in Australia found that sleep deprivation is highly prevalent with an estimated 39.8% of Australian adults experiencing some form of inadequate sleep.
That’s 4 out of every 10 Australian adults.
It also revealed that sleep deprivation was linked to over 3,000 deaths in 2016-17, with just under 400 of those occurring because a person had fallen asleep at the wheel of a vehicle or from an industrial accident due to lack of sleep. The remaining deaths are heart disease and diabetes deaths linked to sleep disorders.
I have clients all the time telling me that they are “surviving” on 4 to 5 hours of sleep every night and I always tell them the same thing: “You are not surviving, you are actually shortening your life”.
Sleep affects every single cell in every organ of the body and it is time for all of us to take a serious look at our sleep.
Going back to the time of my burnout, I was sleeping an average of 2 to 3 hours a night. Ironically, my anxiety around my health after the melanoma treatment, was keeping me awake at all hours of the night.
“Were our finances where I needed them to be if I was to die and leave the responsibility to my family?” “Did I have enough life insurance and even if I didn’t, would I be able to get any now the ‘C’ word was stamped on my health records?”
I needed to get better if I was to turn things around but my sleep, or lack of it, was totally counterintuitive to that.
I would wake up every day feeling exhausted, my brain was foggy, and my tolerance level was almost non-existent. I thought many times about just giving up and then finally one day I struck up the courage to get some help.
Today I want to share a little of what I learned through that time and how I was able to turn things around. I really hope it helps you too.
If I were to summarise this into 3 areas it would be ROUTINE, RHYTHM and RELAXATION.
Let’s start with ROUTINE.
People are creatures of habit and, good and bad, habits are formed by getting into a routine and sticking to it.
My health coach introduced me to the life-changing concept of ‘Sleep Hygiene’. Now, if you had asked me what that was before she told me, I would have thought it was about going to bed in clean sheets after having a shower. There was so much more to it than that. Practicing consistent sleep hygiene non-negotiables will reduce your stress.
My daily routine really affected the amount and quality of sleep I was having each night so it had to change.
It included things like when I got up and when I went to bed, when and what I ate and drank, how much exercise I had and when I had it, staying off screens and having my room totally dark and at the right temperature. The list went on and on. Just google: ’Sleep Hygiene’ and you will find many resources to help you to change your routine which in turn will improve your sleep and your stress.
Just like dancing, sleep is more effective when you have the right rhythm.
If you’ve ever noticed that you tend to feel energised and drowsy around the same times every day, you have your circadian rhythm to thank. Our ‘Circadian’ rhythm is a natural, internal process controlled by our brain that regulates our sleep-wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours.
For most adults, the biggest dip in energy happens in the middle of the night somewhere between 2 and 4 am, when they're usually fast asleep and just after lunchtime around 1 to 3pm, when they tend to crave a post-lunch nap. It’s when you’re sleep-deprived that you’ll notice bigger swings of sleepiness and alertness.
Even though your brain controls your circadian rhythm, outside factors like lightness and darkness can also impact it. When it’s dark at night, your eyes send a signal to the brain that it’s time to feel tired. Your brain, in turn, sends a signal to your body to release melatonin, which makes your body tired. That’s why your circadian rhythm tends to coincide with the cycle of day time and night time.
Your circadian rhythm works best when you have regular sleep habits, like going to bed at night and waking up in the morning around the same times of the day - everyday, even on weekends.
When things get in the way, like jet lag, daylight savings time, or staying up to watch a sporting event on TV that keeps you up until the early hours of the morning, you can disrupt that circadian rhythm, which makes you feel out of sorts and can make it harder to pay attention.
The first step to every healthy sleep and stress regime is learning to relax the mind and body.
For many years I struggled to ‘relax’. My mind was always active, thinking about what I had or hadn’t got done or what I needed to do tomorrow, who was judging me and how was I failing. Did I deserve to take time off and relax?
The negative self-talk that haunts us from time to time, and in my case, sent me on a direct path to The Performance Trap.
Learning to relax took a change of my thinking and my beliefs, as well as my behaviour.
Being present in the moment through practicing meditation and mindfulness was a huge help for me.
Making space in my daily routine for self-care was critical in my recovery and now scheduled in as a non-negotiable priority.
Letting things go quickly, forgiving myself and others, and moving forward.
Staying in touch with my spiritual side through grace and gratitude. Practicing yoga.
These are just a few things that I slowly added into my daily routine that not only help me sleep a solid 7 to 8 hours every night these days, they help me reduce and manage my stress.
So, where are you with your sleep awareness? Is it where it needs to be or are you still justifying your unhealthy habits through your own understanding and logic? I know, I was there too, but it’s all lies and it has to change. It’s all a matter of ROUTINE, RHTHYM and RELAXATION.
Hopefully this has given you some food for thought and even though our calendar sets aside 1 week a year for sleep awareness, this must be something we celebrate every week if we want to live a long and healthy life with less stress.
Have an amazing week because you truly do deserve it and if you still haven’t got your copy of my ‘Stress Reduction Maximiser’, hit the button below and grab one now.
See you next week as we continue the conversation around all things Stress.
Hey everyone, this is Grant and I want to speak to you this week about STRESS.
As someone who has suffered from a lot of stress throughout my entire life, whether it be at school, in my military career or in my corporate career, I know only too well the damaging affects of stress.
I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people over the last few weeks, clients and friends, who are going through a lot of stress and so I thought, why don’t you focus on that topic for a while Grant in everything did you do- whether it be on social media, on Linkedin or on my live videos- have a conversation about stress.
I just want to start that off today and I invite every single one of you to come on this journey with me to be able to reduce your stress and have a much healthier stress response.
See, one of the biggest challenges I’ve found in my own life, and I find in many people’s lives, is that we are too interested in what other people think of us.
We are addicted to approval.
We perform on a daily basis to get others to like us, to like what we do – to put their seal of approval on everything that we do. That can create a lot of uncertainty, a lot of doubt, a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress.
In this fast paced world that we live in, this VUCA world, (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world that we live in), we tend to be always ‘open for business’.
You’ve seen it before, you’ve probably done it. You go out to a restaurant to have dinner and you end up spending much of your time on your phone, checking emails and taking calls. Still plugged into the world outside instead of being present right there and then.
Technology was supposed to make things easier but in my experience it’s made it a lot more complicated and all these demands coming in at us all the time create stress.
Then there’s the conflict. Conflict is inevitable. People are different. People have differing views, people have differing ideas. The fast pace of change and all these things together means that there’s going to be conflict.
So it’s not a matter of there never being any conflict. We need to learn how to manage that conflict in a lot more resourceful ways.
There’s two types of conflict:
The first type of conflict is the one we always think about and that’s the conflict with others. You know, wrestling and boxing and fighting about things and negotiating and having differing opinions and ideas.
But then there’s the internal conflict, the conflict that we have with ourself, the conflict we have between that small inner voice that wants to keep us safe and that confident voice that wants to take us forward into achieve more.
There’s that incongruence between who we are and what we do because we are chasing approval and sometimes we can even go outside our own value system.
And that creates a lot of stress.
Then we end up in a position where we feel overwhelmed. I have been there and I know you’ve been there as well. We just want to raise the white flag and go, “you know what that’s enough. I’m not doing this anymore. It’s just too much. Everything is on top of me.”
I’ve been there and I know you’ve been there too and it needs to change.
The end result of that is we end up burning out, we end up disillusioned, disenfranchised, disengaged. We’re not sure whether the career that we’ve chosen is one that we want to continue in and we just feel tired, we just lose energy. We don’t want to do anything.
And I’ve been there too. In my corporate career and my military career, I burnt out on more than one occasion. I remember the one time in my life where I just cried for four days. I just sobbed and cried. And it was just a release of all that stress.
Burnout is becoming far too prevalent in the circles that I’m working in. And working with people all over the world, the difference in locality and culture and those things, don’t seem to make a difference.
Burnout is a real thing that we need to make sure that we avoid it. Because chronic stress for a long period of time has a major effect on your health.
Stress is a silent killer.
Stress can be attributed to many major diseases like heart attack and stroke.
Chronic stress has led me in my life to many health issues.
Many negative effects can happen to your body when you are continually in stress mode.
There’s a few of them here, like fatigue, having that brain fog, decreased mood, not really wanting to do things, changes in our skin texture, narrowing of the arteries and increased blood sugar levels, decreased nutrient absorption which gives things like leaky gut and other digestive problems, immunity issues, hormonal imbalances, increased cortisol.
Cortisol is excreted from the adrenal glands on top of our kidneys and it’s there to be sent out in a short burst. What a lot of us are finding, is that across the world people have cortisol shooting through their bloodstream regularly. Well that has a major effect on our entire system: Our brain and all our bodily functions can be totally out of whack.
I myself have suffered from adrenal fatigue, where it got a point where my adrenal glands said: “Hey, give us a break. There’s nothing left.” And I got quite sick and I’m still on a recovery from that for many years down the track.
So stress has a major effect on the body.
And I really wanted to get your attention today before we go on this journey together. A lot of times we just want to get in and learn, “What do I need to do?”
Well, here’s the thing that I’ve found: If we do that without first having a reason why, then the extra things, all the different things that we need to do and change, can become all too hard. But I want to get your attention right now.
You know, my health got my attention, my doctor got my attention, the situation got my attention and I had to make some change and I want to help you to get there before I did. I want you to get that realisation and awareness now and make the changes that you need to make.
So what I want to do is introduce you over the next few weeks to some top tips and strategies that I’ve used in my life and learnings that I’ve learned from other people, from books, from my studies in neuroscience and positive psychology and emotional intelligence, and help you to implement those so that you can reduce your stress fast because we can have different results.
We can go from being in that performance trap mode to self approval where we don’t really care what other people think of us.
Now, I’m not saying that from an arrogant point of view where we go, “Hey, I don’t care what you think, I’ll do whatever I want.”
No. We still need to be humble and teachable, but what I’m saying here is: “What you say doesn’t define me and I’m okay with who I am. I know what my strengths are, I know what my areas for development are and I’m okay with that.”
From there, we can set some healthy boundaries and say no and yes appropriately. We can switch off and unplug and be okay with that. And instead of things and situations pushing our buttons and make us respond in a reactive way, we can take back control.
We can reduce our level of stress, we can manage the stress that we’re going through and have a much healthier stress response. We can rediscover our authenticity, we can take off the mask, start working with who we really are.
And all these really reduces your stress.
For years I would put on this mask – I would try to be this person to please everybody else and that was very stressful. It was like playing an act where I had to remember a different script to the internal dialogue that was going on.
Well, we can rediscover that.
I want to help you to to escape that performance trap where you end up having an abundance of energy instead of being disengaged. You will have the energy that you need to have in every area of your life – not just work because you were born for a lot more than that.
And you can be happy and you can be healthy.
When that permeates around us, those people around us can be a lot happier and healthier as well. Because stress doesn’t just affect you, it affects the people around you. And I know you know that.
So I really invite you to come on this journey with me over the next few weeks and we’re going to look at the things that you and I can do to reduce stress.
See, the first thing we’ve got to understand is that changing is a process.
It’s a two step process.
The first thing we’ve got to do is look at the triggers.
What are the buttons that are pushed that caused our stress?
When we’ve identified those and we look at the ones that are unhealthy, we deal with those things and we then develop new strategies, and stress responses.
Every single one of us already have strategies that we’re running and we already have stress strategies. Some of them are good for us, some of them are not.
So it’s a matter of mapping it out just like in a game of chess. It’s a matter of having the moves ready to go. It’s a matter of preparing. It’s a matter of changing some mindsets and beliefs and behaviours and developing new strategies. So then when this happens, I would respond this way rather than react like I used to.
So that’s what I wanted to talk to you about today. I wanted to make sure that I just laid the foundation of where we go on.
Stress is a silent killer. Stress is a steal-up of a quality of life.
And I want to do what I can to help you to reduce your stress.
For those of you who really want to get a head start on this, what I’ve done is I’ve put together some thoughts and written an ebook. That ebook is called the Stress Reduction Maximiser. One day I want to turn it into a full hard cover novel-like thesis. But for now it’s an ebook where I’ve added some thoughts and I’ve given you those three hot tips and you can just grab that from my website.
Just below this video ( you could be looking at this on on my blog or on social media or Linkedin), there’ll be a link to go grab this e-book.
It’s for free.
It’s something that helps me to get my thoughts out. There are visuals there that might help you to have a better understanding of stress and how you can reduce it. So, Hey, this is Grant Herbert and I want to help you to reduce your stress fast. Over the next few weeks, we’ll step through those principles- those tips that are in the book.
So go ahead right now, grab yourself a coffee and grab yourself a copy of my e-book and I shall see you in next week’s video.
Have a great week. You deserve it. Bye for now.