Week 16 - XLR8 The Passionate Leader

Since I send this so you can start your week with inspiration, I thought you would enjoy the Every Monday Matters video from Simple Truths. Take three minutes to start your week thinking about this week’s theme - serving others - and send it to someone who you would like to inspire this Monday.

• Zig Ziglar’s Inspiration: 365 Days A Year
• My favorite quote for the week of April 20^th – April 26^th: “The message is clear: Plan with attitude, prepare with aptitude, participate with servitude, receive with gratitude, and this should separate you from the multitudes.”
• When describing Level 5 Leadership in Good to Great, Jim Collins described several great leaders. They had all made the transformation from being focused on self interest to serving the common good. The combination of professional will and humility made them the type of leaders who people wanted to follow - not had to follow.

• The Best Year of Your Life: Get Debbie Ford's Kit
• Week Fifteen Assignment – Put it on Paper!
• Your unique ability is a description of how you serve the world – given by those who love and care about you. Now that you have captured some data, we can examine how you can better serve the world by spending more time practicing your unique ability.
• Week Sixteen Assignment – Say NO!
• This week, complete the “Focusing your Unique Ability” exercise. Take last weeks’ data and list the top ten activities you performed and the % of the total time you were able to devote to practicing your unique ability. Draw a big circle on a blank piece of paper and list all those activities inside the circle.
• During the week, write down those activities you perform regularly that fall outside of those top 10 Unique Ability activities. How do you Say NO?! Can you stop doing them, delegate them, or shorten the time you must spend on them. This is the only way you will get more time to practice your Unique Ability. How much better would your productivity be if you spent 10% more time practicing your Unique Ability? How about 20%?

• Creating a Culture of Leadership Development – A Drop for Your Bucket!!! Send an electronic drop or comment by going to the blog and clicking on the “comment” icon at the end of this week’s posting.
• We received a note from one of the Zone Coordinators we have just started working with. She had her first monthly team meeting. They planned next month’s menu together. They shared data and gave each other ideas about simplification and shared stories about their successes and challenges. Lastly, the leader handed out the “Bucket Filling Interview Guide” to be completed and discussed next time. All she could say was . . . WOW!! We say . . . the BLNDBKR strikes again!!!

To date, we have 166 subscribers. My goal is 1,000 by year end. We need your help!!! Invite a friend, colleague or sign up your team this week.

Week 15 - XLR8 The Passionate Leader

Thanks to Denise for her comment last week. Check it out at the end of last week’s post. This fits into the “L” (love) in my formula for happiness. Remember G + L + F = JOY!!! “Loving what you do in service of those who love what you do”. Thanks Denise for telling people what you love about what they love to do!!! The first step is getting in touch with this through your unique ability – this week’s theme.

• Zig Ziglar’s Inspiration: 365 Days A Year
• My favorite quote for the week of April 13^th – April 19^th: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” – Thomas A. Edison
• Dan Sullivan was the first to introduce me to the concept of unique ability. He supports Thomas Edison’s statement, but approaches it a little differently. Once you discover and articulate your unique ability (1% inspiration) – then spend 10,000 hours of “perspiration” getting better and better at it.
• The more you do this – the more love will be in your life.

• The Best Year of Your Life: Get Debbie Ford's Kit
• Week Thirteen Assignment – Risk
• Did you exercise your risk-taking muscle and ask for help using XLR8Forward? Reward yourself for every risk taken - no matter how small.
• Week Fourteen Assignment – Put it on Paper!
• This is the week to keep track of how much time you are spending exercising and improving your unique ability. Write down your unique ability on the top of a blank sheet of paper. At the end of each day, write down those activities that fall under your unique ability. Estimate the percentage of time you spent on them. We’ll do a “focusing your unique ability” exercise next week. Just collect some data this week.
• If you are new or would like a refresher on the unique ability process, drop us an e-mail and we’ll get you going.

• Creating a Culture of Leadership Development – A Drop for Your Bucket!!! Send an electronic drop or comment by going to the blog and clicking on the “comment” icon at the end of this week’s posting.
• Elaine was talking to one of her new clients and he was blown away after receiving a call from another Leadership Excellence participant – wanting to help in any way he could. I have heard this gentleman’s name before referenced in several “lifelines” as a mentor. That’s what a leadership learning community is all about. Who have you reached out to lately…?

To date, we have 161 subscribers. My goal is 1,000 by year end. We need your help!!! Invite a friend, colleague or sign up your team this week.

Week 14 XLR8 The Passionate Leader

I was notified by the Wake Up Live the Life You Love publisher that the book I’m contributing to is going to “draft” print. We will each get a copy to proof and then it will go to press. There are co-authors from these countries: USA-31, Canada-2, UK-2, Italy-2, Germany-1, Israel-1, Dubai-1, South Africa-1, Australia-5, New Zealand-2, Virgin Islands-1. Who knows where this might lead ~ maybe nowhere ~ but at least I took a risk!

• Zig Ziglar’s Inspiration: 365 Days A Year
• My favorite quote for the week of April 6^th – April 12^th: “Four short words sum up what lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: A LITTLE BIT MORE. They did all that was expected of them and … a little bit more.” – A. Lou Vickery
• This is illustrated perfectly in the Simple Truths Book/Video – 212^o The Extra Degree A client showed it at the end of a quarterly staff meeting I attended to emphasize that great things can happen with just ... a little bit more.

• The Best Year of Your Life: Get Debbie Ford's Kit
• Week Thirteen Assignment – Surrender
• You needn’t always insist that your own perspective and opinions are the only right ones.
• Week Fourteen Assignment – Risk
• To move forward powerfully and achieve quantum results, we have to take risks. Do you have a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) on the table right now? Identify one place in your life where you are not getting the results you desire. Write down three actions you could take that would be outside your usual comfort zone that would move you toward your BHAG.
• Practice XLR8Forward: Ask three people whose opinions you respect how they would go about achieving your goal. Then listen! Steal shamelessly!

• Creating a Culture of Leadership Development – A Drop for Your Bucket!!! Send an electronic drop or comment by going to the blog and clicking on the “comment” icon at the end of this week’s posting.
• Praise someone you know who took a risk. My congratulations go to the team I worked with last week who worked through a “Naming Elephants” session. It was a little scary, but so worthwhile. You can’t be the best team you’ve have ever been on by playing it safe!

To date, we have 162 subscribers, including a new colleague, Phillip Ralph, from Australia. THANKS! Check out his article Love That Culture in Management Today (Australian Institute of Management). My goal is 1,000 by year end. I need your help!!! Invite a friend or colleague this week.

Week 13 - XLR8 The Passionate Leader

This week we found ourselves talking about people who are “failing” in their current jobs and the difficulty addressing this issue. Usually we are the first to know that we are on “the wrong seat on the bus”, but we are afraid to admit “failure”. Rather than look to how we can find a job better suited to our strengths, we will try to hold on - putting our teammates and supervisor in a very uncomfortable situation. The bottom line is first admitting that we are a “duck, trying to attend eagle school” Check out this DVD

• Zig Ziglar’s Inspiration: 365 Days A Year
• My favorite quote for the week of March 30^th – April 5^th: “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.” – Denis Waitley
• Denis was my second audio mentor after Earl Nightingale. I bought his first audio program: The Psychology of Winning. It was a tough, no-nonsense approach based on years of documented scientific research. The techniques it taught me showed a path to making me a "winner in life." Looking back, Denis was my first “coach” and began my interest in coaching.
• I actually avoided a huge failure when I decided my strengths would not be best utilized being a CEO of a Health System - my boss’ job. Since that was always my goal, I needed a plan “B”. I started with a conversation with my boss, who was instrumental in helping me get here!

• The Best Year of Your Life: Get Debbie Ford's Kit
• Week Twelve Assignment – Learn from the Mirror of Relationships
• After completing this exercise, are you truly happy with your job. Is it time for a plan “B”?
• Week Thirteen Assignment – Surrender
• Take some time this week to notice the amount of energy you spend trying to keep from “failing” in a job you know deep down is not right for you. What does the struggle rob you of? What actions would you need to take in order to surrender and accept this situation exactly as it is? Start your plan “B”!
• If not you, maybe you see this in someone you work with and care about. Do you care enough to help them surrender?

• Creating a Culture of Leadership Development – A Drop for Your Bucket!!! Send an electronic drop or comment by going to the blog and clicking on the “comment” icon at the end of this week’s posting.
• Thanks to Garret Callahan for commenting last week. He gets to choose another Simple Truths Book/DVD of his choice.

To date, we have 157 subscribers. My goal is 1,000 by year end. Invite a friend or colleague this week.

Week 12 - XLR8 The Passionate Leader

As always, this last class had their biggest opportunity in improving their leadership performance as indicated by the Leadership Practices Inventory question #16 – “Asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other people’s performance”. We’ll address not only why it is difficult, but some ways to approach it though this week’s theme – Are you ready, willing, and able to be coached?

• Zig Ziglar’s Inspiration: 365 Days A Year
• My favorite quote for the week of March 23^rd – March 29^th: “You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you behave yourself into.” – Stephen Covey
• Well actually you can . . . it’s called DENIAL! I often joke that “the state of denial is a beautiful place.” I came across this a couple of times this week and the Johari Window model came to mind (see Johari Window Model). This model provides a picture into what a trusted person, including your coach, can provide you like no one else.
• We all have “blind areas’ – known by others but unknown by self. We solicit feedback through 360⁰ data or team assessment data and then we have a choice. Are we truly ready, willing, and able to be coached? If you are, it’s no longer denial.
• Sometimes the “unknown area” (unknown by self/unknown by others – you don’t know what you don’t know!) is the biggest obstacle, but it’s where the most opportunity for transformation lies. If we have never experienced something (a great team, a loving, intimate relationship) we may not know what we are missing or think we have it, at least according to what we have experienced. If you do nothing, it is worse than denial because you and your team/organization cannot be all it can be.

• The Best Year of Your Life: Get Debbie Ford's Kit
• Week Eleven Assignment – Take Back Your Power
• Do you have clarity and focus? NO ONE can take them away from you, and more importantly, NO ONE can keep you from fulfilling it without your permission.
• Week Twelve Assignment – Learn from the Mirror of Relationships
• A great random selection given the Johari Window Model reference above. Seek out two people whom you admire, and invite them to answer these questions:
• What about me inspires you the most?
• What do you think is possible for me in the year to come?
• What behavior, habit, or belief do you think I would have to give up in order to make this the best year of my life?
• What skills and abilities do I have that you would like to see me develop?
• Look for common themes and act upon them.

• Creating a Culture of Leadership Development – A Drop for Your Bucket!!! Send an electronic drop
• I sent out five drops this week. How many did you send? How do you feel when you did? I know the receivers LOVE THEM!!!
• Make one of your drops a blog comment to share with our community and get a free Simple Truths Book/DVD of your choice as a reward.

To date, we have 152 subscribers. My goal is 1,000 by year end. Invite a friend or colleague this week.