Go Fast, Turn Left…

The topic for this weekend’s #USBlogs post “What are you afraid of, and (more importantly), what are you doing about it?” was suggested by @donfperkins

Like many, I share a few traditional and customary fears:

• I have a healthy interest in keeping my feet on the floor (rather than attached to the end of a fully stretched bungee cord or beneath a billowing piece of silk)
• I am mildly arachnophobic, which I reportedly share with up to 55% of western women and 18% of western men.
• I prefer not to walk in unlit areas late at night
• I have to look the other way when being punctured by a hypodermic

But none of those things really interfere with my day to day or professional life.

The number one thing I am afraid of is that when all is said and done, what I have done won’t make a lasting difference.

As a parent, I worry about the impact I have on my kids, and how I can make sure that they become all that they can be. We are all doing it (parenting that is) for the first time, without a backup plan. To counteract my fear, I long ago wrote myself a guideline for the kinds of adults I hope my kids will become : caring, nurturing, intelligent, questioning, hard working etc. It made me realise the values I wanted to instill in my kids and the personality traits I would most admire in them as adults. The minor arguments and challenges over things that don’t really matter; like finishing all the food on their plate, drinking another can of pop or what clothes they wear, now get weighed against how that particular battle will contribute to the kind of adult they will become. Having a goal-plan allows me to focus on the bigger picture and not get drawn into every little scrap. From a professional standpoint, and as leaders, we all need to learn to do the same. Focus on the bigger picture and allow the noise and distractions that happen around us every day to colour our actions only to the extent they have an impact on our future.

The other thing I am afraid of is getting too comfortable and set in my ways.

The more success we achieve professionally, the more vital it is to acknowledge the enormous value of learning and stretching in areas where you are least comfortable. Paradoxically, it is also when we feel most pressure to be infallible. As a Director, VP or even a C-Level executive, you still cannot afford to stop learning and growing from those around you. That said, you do need to maintain a presence with your followers which inspires their confidence and loyal commitment. Over the last few years I have done a few things to ensure that I don’t fall prey to the silencing pressure of my own accomplishments. I have worked with external mentors to candidly explore areas where I could stretch and grow. My mentors have ranged from those I have worked with in the past to those I have actively sought out to purposefully chart unmapped areas of expertise. I have placed myself in relationships of trust to openly discuss where inexperience and hesitancy might be holding me back. The value of a third party perspective to the learning opportunities you might find yourself in enable you to extrapolate to general rules and methods to use again and again.

My Son, skating recently in Toronto

Some of the best learning opportunities come from facing fear and pushing yourself all the way to the point of failure! Only then do you know just how far you can go. That is why many of us put ourselves in extreme situations, to see just how capable we really are. I do this in my life by taking on new skills outside of my professional capacity, to stay grounded to the need to learn and grow. The skill I took on this year was speed-skating. My son took up the sport in 2009 and I decided it was time for mum to stop sitting in the stands and start taking a more active interest. Our club has members from age 6 to 78 and one of our older skaters only started speed skating at age 70 and went on to win a slew of medals! Having barely strapped on a pair of skates before, I took to the ice last September. I cannot profess to be record-breaking fast, but a few months later I am proudly traversing the ice in crouched position with smooth sideways strokes and cross-overs, accomplished only because I learned to let go and push myself to beyond the point of failure (with several bruises to show for it)! Next year I may even quell my fears long enough to enter a race or two!  I find learning new skills where I have to fail in order to succeed a great lesson in humility and a constant reminder to stay fresh in my thinking at work. How can I push past the point of comfort to unveil new methods. What’s my workplace equivalent of Go Fast, Turn Left…?

In her famous book ”Feel the fear and do it anyway” Susan Jeffers shared 5 Truths about fear:

• Truth 1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow
• Truth 2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.
• Truth 3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out and do it.
• Truth 4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.
• Truth 5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

I am proud to fear… It inspires me to keep learning. How do your fears push you?

This post is part of the #usblogs: Week 5 Round-Up Topic of the week: “What Are You Afraid Of? More Importantly, What Are You Doing about It?”

Check out these other blogs in the network series:

• The One Thing You Need to Build Your Network @HeidiCohen
• Sponge Bob Forever @lexbz
• 5 Steps to Deleting the Fear That Facebook Will Ruin Your Life @rmalove
• What Am I Afraid Of? (And What I am Doing About it) @jackinessity
• What I Am Afraid Of @jennyherner
• Kick your fears to the curb; not your ambitions @ExecRoundtable
• Losing Myself: That is My Greatest Fear @libbytalks
• What the FUD Are You Saying? 5 ways to use fear, uncertainty and doubt in marketing for positive results… @therealsjr
• Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid @prosperitygal
• When your fears match up with Charlie Sheen’s @onejillian
• Are We Scared of Scale? @abovethestatic
• Overcome your fear of Twitter @grit08
• “I’m Not Afraid of Nothing.” @greetums
• Answering “What If?” @Karen5Lund
• No Sucking Allowed @PaulBiedermann
• #UsBlog Challenge: What are you most afraid of? @aldsaur
• Go Fast Turn Left @GabyORourke
• From Fear to Opportunity: Leveraging the #USfactor @iangertler
• What Are You Afraid Of? More Importantly, What Are You Doing About it? 6 Ways to Make #Change Less Scary @donfperkins

Do you continue to court your clients?

The other day I posted about welcoming new contacts into your world by tweaking the way you respond to ‘interruptions’ in your day. If you are open to it, it can be exciting to meet new people and you never know what you may learn from each other. In my world in particular, developing new relationships is key to future business growth.

But what about banking time in our existing relationships?

I was listening to a Six Pixels pod-cast by Mitch Joel and Joseph Jaffe talking about the absence of real conversations and how people open the door to a relationship, only to find that their conversant (or commenter in the case of a blog) has disappeared…radio silence  “Hello, are you still there??” Got me thinking, how often do we inadvertently do that to clients or new business contacts? How often do we deliver a piece of work and move on to the next client or contact without checking back and asking “Hey, how was that? Did that get you to what you needed? Is there anything else you need help with?”

Meanwhile, your best clients are no doubt being actively courted by your competitors. They are being asked about their business challenges, about the gaps in service, about the areas that bug them about the service providers they work with today(A.K.A. YOU!) What are they not getting from their current service providers that would like to get? Where could they be getting more value? What could help them advance their business interests further?

My real challenge is this – what’s stopping you from exploring those questions with them yourself? From asking them how else you could step up your game and become irreplaceable in their eyes. Or, if you were trying to win this client away from your competition, what else could you offer them to convince them to move (and then offer it to them to stay). How can you improve their business beyond solid delivery of the expected? How can you keep them aware of, and confident in your continued attraction to serving their business? If they weren’t working with you today, who would they choose to work with and why?

Don’t be afraid to ask your existing contacts – how can I be of better service to you? Their answers may surprise you and you will help deepen and extend your relationship with them. And just because you are confident that what you deliver to them today is of very high quality, and you have a good relationship with your existing clients, doesn’t mean those relationships can’t be strengthened by some extra time and TLC.

I see dead people…

If you’re a fan of M.Night Shayamalan then you’ll recognize this memorable line from the Movie The Sixth Sense.  This is the moment when Haley Joel Osment provides Bruce Willis with a huge insight into what might be going on. He goes on to share that they are… “Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.”

At the time, Bruce’s character Malcolm puts this odd comment down to a young boy’s morbid imagination. It takes several more scenes for Bruce’s character Malcolm Crowe, and the audience watching, to realise what Cole really meant with these words.  The power of the movie comes from this slow realisation that a change in mindset and perspective is needed to truly see what is happening all around them.

I sometimes wonder if that’s what’s going on in the corporate world today. In amongst the change agents and innovators, the doers and decision makers, are a large number of ‘ghosts’ not realising that the conversations they are having and work they are doing are part of an old reality. People clinging to a sense of what used to work, the way things have always been done, and the comfortable tried and true… But the world of work has changed. As people are shouting from the rooftops all around us – lead, rise up, make a difference, bring value, build business based on trust, give away knowledge, attract followers, stop interrupting people, give people a reason to invest in you or your business (by providing deep value…)

Don’t wait for the splashes of red to learn you’re one of the dead people…

8 questions to focus activities…

I’ve spent the better part of the last 20 years providing practical suggestions for how to connect with clients, grow business strategically and clarify brands and value propositions. One of the things I’ve learned along the way is to ask myself and others questions about what we do and how we choose to spend our time. These questions have become even more critical to me now that I am self employed.

Question all activities – be really accountable for the answers

• Why am I doing this?
• What am I intending the result to be from this activity?
• How will this contribute to my objectives today? Long term?
• Is this the best way to spend my time right now?
• What am I choosing not to do when I choose to spend time on this?
• Do I have all the information, tools and resources I need to maximise this activity (if not – where can I get them?)
• If I could only do 2 things today, what 2 things should I do?

and my personal favourite…

• If I were hiring me to perform this job, would I pay me to do this…?

Are you really making a difference???

I am a huge fan of Seth Godin, and others of his cohort. They have taught us all so much about reaching for our full potential and making a difference in the world. They are clearly very insightful thinkers with a massive audience of followers and believers in their message.

Why then are so many who claim to be fans still failing to act differently!!!

In his recent post You’re already self employed, Seth makes a simple and elegant ‘call to action’ to shake people out of their sheepwalk. At the time of writing this some 450 people had retweeted the post and I’m sure by the end of the day many more will have done so.

However it reminds me of the saying

“when all is said and done, more is said than done”.

I have observed the reality that Seth speaks of, in companies where people bemoan the lack of empowerment and autonomy to change their role but do NOTHING to challenge the status quo and help establish better ways. They wait for the organisation to GIVE them the authority rather than claim their own role in leading the way. Even people who have leadership titles often wait to be shown the way….HUH???

And then there are others who clearly think their role is to keep on doing stuff without questioning whether that stuff is of ANY value to the organisation. How many countless hours are wasted on reports that gather dust, presentations that do not inspire change and meetings which put people to sleep?

When you are self-employed you have to demonstrate the value that you bring to the table EVERY day. You have to SHOW UP and be counted. Perhaps if more people did that, they would find themselves actively engaged instead of sucking a paycheque and waiting for the weekend.

So – people – show some respect for the man you claim to rever so much. Don’t just retweet his elegant words and succint messages. Go make a difference….