XLR8 The Passionate Leader: (G + L + F = JOY!!!)

Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:

• “I surround myself with positive-thinking people.” This may be easier said than done for some people given the adage “you can choose your friends, but not your family”. In any event, when you have the choice, who do you spend your time with? If you want more positive experiences in your life, check out who you spend your time with.
• Why is this important? I just completed a book entitled: “Positivity – Top Notch Research Reveals the 3 – 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life”. Positivity – Top Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life (click). Positive psychology pioneer, Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., introduces readers to the power of harnessing happiness to transform their lives backed up by impressive lab research. The author lays out the core truths and 10 forms of positivity - joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love - in a book that promises to change the way people look at feeling good. She provides scientific evidence to illustrate her findings that maintaining a 3:1 positivity ratio of positive thoughts to negative emotions creates a tipping point between languishing and flourishing. What is your Positivity Ratio? (click) Eighty percent of Americans fall short of this ratio!!!

PLEASE NOTE: In response to the last blog posting, Joan Shafer passed along Daniel Pink’s great YouTube video: “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motives Us” (click). Every leader should know this basic truth. Play it forward.

XLR8 YOU!!! – An Invitation to Our Vision

For all of us to awaken to the magnificence of our limitless possibilities.

Thanks to the people who asked where my blog was last week. I took Father’s Day off which was a wonderful celebration at our home with 25 family members. It was the first time in a while where all our adult children were in town. My middle daughter, Molly, gave me a “Chicken Soup for the Soul Book – Thanks Dad”, which I am enjoying. The stories are from children remembering how their Dads said “I love you”, taught them life lessons and gave them moments that last forever, etc.

Like coaching, great parents learn as much form their children as they teach. One story reminded me of when I quit my job to start The XLR8 Team in 1996. What terrible timing . . . my girls were 16 and 13, and my son was 7 years old. How would we pay for college? We survived – in fact, our last payment was April 1^st. The best encouragement came from my son, Andrew, in the form of a poem:

My Dad “XLR8s”

My Dad had a job that was really great, but he wants to XLR8.

XLR8 will be great when my Dad gets a lot of business dates.

He will charge a big, fat rate, so I hope he doesn’t show up late.

I really think it must be fate, for my Dad’s new business to XLR8!!!

I tell this story because he helped me as I attempted to keep my own 3:1 ratio on the many days of self doubt and negative thinking. I framed the poem and put it on my office wall along with my “inner guidance system” (unique ability, personal mission and values). In today’s terms, I include them as part of my vision board.

Let me end this week’s posting with another invitation that kept me going in 1999 from Oriah Mountain Dreamer:

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living,

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare

to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know

if you will risk looking like a fool for love,

for your dream, for the adventure of being alive…

This is the basis for XLR8 YOU!!! “Leadership Excellence”. It all starts with how you lead your life!!!

XLR8 The Passionate Leader: (G + L + F = JOY!!!)

Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:

• “I am grateful for everything in my life. The last thing I do before I drift off to sleep is to express gratitude for every experience I have had during the day.” This has been even more poignant since two people my age who I know passed away recently. Both were doing what they loved to do up to the very end. One was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last June, and because he loved to write, he created a blog to help himself and others cope with what turned out to be a terminal illness. Check it out at www.jaygallagher.blogspot.com. The second was a former champion body builder who I met at the gym and knew casually in high school. He was always helping people with their fitness, including volunteering, as a strength coach to our local high schools. He had a massive stroke in the locker room and never recovered.
• It just makes me even more committed to the “L” in my formula: loving yourself by doing what you love to do in service of others who love what you do. I remind myself every day of what that means by reading my “happiness list” every morning when I get up and every evening before I go to bed. It is my list of a dozen things I want to bring more fully into my life every day. Thanks Jay and Max for making that a deeper experience.

XLR8 YOU!!! – An Invitation

Our Vision – for all of us to awaken to the magnificence of our limitless possibilities.

How I arrived at this statement forms the basis of my formula G + L + F = JOY!!! I suppose it started because of my own frustration over two of the most overused words in business today - engagement and empowerment. Not only was I feeling less of it, I know the people I lead felt the same. That’s because businesses think that “they need to do something” to engage or empower us. Alfie Kohn’s speech: “The ABC’s of Motivation” put it in perspective for me.

In the mid 90’s, I attended a luncheon where he spoke of his book: Punished by Rewards: “The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes.” Since being a coach was about motivating people, so I thought, I listened with great interest. He challenged contemporary thinking that while manipulating people with incentives may seem to work in the short run; they ultimately fail and even do lasting harm in the long run. Drawing from hundreds of studies, he demonstrated that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed by money, grades or incentives. The more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we are bribing them to do.

I took copious notes that day which I have sent to numerous people over the years. I read his book with great interest and confirmed my beliefs that current organizational practices are just another example of insanity – doing the same thing, maybe even more of it and expecting greater results. Long lasting motivation is an inside job (intrinsic)! The outside (extrinsic) motivators we can provide in organizations as leaders must be aligned with the inside motivators we discover for ourselves and encourage that discover in our people. These motivators are captured in Alfie’s ABC’s of motivation.

• A = Autonomy. People need to be invited, not coerced. The true measure of engagement or empowerment is whether people have to or want to work there. Treat people like volunteers or they will leave. In my opinion, there is so much job hopping today because most organizational cultures stink! They still treat people like machines - making every little decision. They can budget and spend their annual salaries in their personal life but need boss approval to spend $25!

• B = Belonging. People need to feel a part of something larger than themselves. Organizations need to provide a compelling vision, mission and values along with leadership that inspires them to follow them with integrity. More importantly, however, each individual has to figure out for themselves why they are on this planet and how their organization gives them a place to live it.

• C = Competence. People want to be good at something. Organizations need to better match people with their skills and talents. We need to help people develop their “G” (Genius, Greatness), because we all have it inside and once discovered, developed and practiced, organizational productivity and engagement soar.

So thanks, Alfie, for this logical argument - it makes a lot of sense. I motivated me to start the XLR8 YOU!!! Leadership Excellence process with the “G” of the formula.

XLR8 The Passionate Leader: (G + L + F = JOY!!!)

Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:

• I am satisfied, fulfilled, and complete. And I am ready for new adventures of every kind. I clean out the old closets of my mind to prepare for all the wonderful things that are coming to me. This was the summary page for June. Very fitting since I have very limited appointments this month so I can make a major dent in writing my book. I know that this will not only help me realize how I can continue to serve the world, but is turning out to be a springboard into new learnings and experiences.
• A case in point is I began reading Dr. Darren Weissman’s second book, Awakening to the Secret Code of Your Mind. After my PSYCH-K training and practice, this is a perfect follow-up. His focus is on self-love and choosing love over fear, two key themes of my book that I am bringing more openly into the business arena for those attracted to it. I still have a lot to learn about both and hope to take his workshops in 2011 to support my passion of bringing peace and happiness to myself and those I love.

It’s a time of celebration for the Brady’s – My Greatest Leadership Challenge!

I’m going to bore you with a little Brady news, because May has been an incredible month. Please look back over your recent past and celebrate your abundance.

Anyone with children knows that it is the hardest job you’ll ever have. We get no training, except from our parents (yikes! – is that what our kids will say too?) and kids don’t come with an owner’s manual. That’s the beauty of it all really because being a parent is one of the best learning experiences here at Earth School.

Andrew, my youngest, graduated from Cornell this weekend. We are so proud of how he has approached his life and challenges. He has a presence that is truly remarkable, when he isn’t over stressed during exam week! He will make a difference in this world, as we all will and do.

My oldest, Laura, had her 31^st birthday this week. She teaches 9^th graders primarily – you know how they are! She got five cakes, a hundred cards or notes – it was overwhelming. What do you think, does she teach from love or fear? Wow!!!

Lastly, my middle daughter Molly chose her wedding reception place and we put the deposit on it for 09-10-11. She is so happy and so are we. What a wonderful celebration to look forward to. Finding the love of your life is such a gift and probably the second most difficult job here at Earth School.

I am so grateful that Elaine is such a patient and loving teacher and partner who has made all the above possible with me.

Celebrate your blessings!!!

XLR8 The Passionate Leader: (G + L + F = JOY!!!)

Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:

• “Life is an exciting surprise. I wake up in the morning looking for positive experiences, and I find them in the most unexpected places.” As I mentioned last time, I just returned from the second symposium of The Soul Purpose Institute presented by Steve D’Annunzio. He is a strong advocate of a “prosperity hour” every morning consisting of exercise and meditation, which he refers to as “spiritual practices”.
• When he first talked about it about a year ago, I said no way, I don’t have that kind of time. Over the last year, I have gotten up every morning do my abs and arms exercises. I also read over my happiness list now, my XLR8 YOUR POWER statement (Steve calls it “reality statement”) and meditate. It is such an amazing way to start the day. Start small, I did. But, just start!

I am on a mission to learn and teach to lead from love.

This is another statement from my XLR8 YOUR POWER statement. I mention it this week since I had the opportunity to see it in action first hand this week.

A former client of mine recently accepted a new position in a community closer to her family. She isn’t taking the job as much for the relocation, but because it is her next big breakthrough goal.

When I first met her, she was given a promotion to the corporate offices after an extremely successful turn-around operational assignment. One of her new areas of responsibility was leadership development and when I started working with her, I knew she got the love-fear equation. Unfortunately, the culture did not support or recognize that as a strength. Eventually, the fear culture created by top leadership lead to her deciding to see what was next for her.

Most of the 150 people at the going away party this week were there to celebrate the love and inspiration she created over the years. During an almost endless video testimonial presentation, I never heard “love” mentioned more about a leader. After she made some brief comments about how much each of them has taught and inspired her, more people grabbed the microphone to laugh, cry and thank her for all she did and how she loved them all.

The best part of this story is yet to come. She accepted a position where she is the top leader, able to create a culture that she is dreaming of and believes in with all her heart. No one deserves this opportunity more. The people she will serve will be in for something special. She will learn a ton while she creates something that must be duplicated if there is any hope for this world. That’s the power of leading from love. You go, Girl!!!