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 totally free to choose thoughts of joy. It is my Divine right to do so.” Here are some thoughts of joy that Mike Cullen sent me after last week’s blog related to the book: Positivity – Top Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life (click). It fits perfectly with Tool #10: Ritualize Gratitude in Chapter 11. He dug up an old poem which deserves a place on your refrigerator or happiness list for a period of time.

Be yourself..............Have a great day ahead

Be understanding to your perceived enemies.

Be loyal to your friends.

Be strong enough to face the world each day.

Be weak enough to know you cannot do everything alone.

Be generous to those who need your help.

Be frugal with what you need yourself.

Be wise enough to know that you do not know everything.

Be foolish enough to believe in miracles.

Be willing to share your joys.

Be willing to share the sorrows of others.

Be a leader when you see a path others have missed.

Be a follower when you are shrouded by the mists of uncertainty.

Be first to congratulate an opponent who succeeds.

Be last to criticize a colleague who fails.

Be sure where your next step will fall so that you will not tumble.

Be sure of your final destination in case you are going the wrong way.

Be loving to those who love you.

Be loving to those who do not love you; they may change.

Above all, be yourself.

Just Be Yourself!!!

XLR8 YOU!!! – An invitation to our vision:

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

Indeed the road to JOY!!! in our formula begins with “G” - more clarity and focus on your God, Genius, and/or Greatness. In other words - just being yourself! The first step towards clarity is writing down what we call your inner guidance system consisting of Unique Ability, Personal Mission and Values, and Passions.

This was one of the most significant steps for me in starting The XLR8 Team. In the mid-90’s, I discovered my unique ability using this process:

1. Ask a minimum of 10 friends, family & colleagues: What is my unique ability - why do you have a relationship with me; what is it about me that makes our relationship special. Limit to 2 - 3 words or a short concise sentence.
2. On a piece of paper, draw a circle with as many lines as there are people who responded radiating from it - I call this the sundial. In each space, write the 2 or 3 words that had the most meaning from each of your participants. Highlight similar words or themes that belong in your unique ability statement.
3. Lastly, write a 15 – 20 word sentence that best captures those themes.

When I discovered mine - Enthusiastic, positive, consensus builder who advocates fresh, but often unpopular ideas in a way that leads to self discovery & change – I had no idea it would lead to coaching and The XLR8 Team.

Next week, we will talk about how to better utilize this aspect of your “G”.

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.