Change Leadership
Scared of spiders? Performance reviews? Speaking in public?
Love this post by Shawn Hunter: Destroy one fear, Change your life.
It suggests that if you can conquer one fear, you can develop a mindset that will help you with others and change your life.
Worth a read even if simply for the reinforcement that it is possible.
When I was growing up and my mother wanted to “point out the error of my ways”, I remember that she often prefaced her no doubt well-intentioned words of advice with: “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Depending on how much I wanted to hear her “words of wisdom”, especially if I disagreed with her or was embarrassed because I had been caught out in some way, I must have often looked away because the other phrase I remember was: “Don’t you turn away when I’m speaking to you!”
Why is it that, in our culture at least, we want people to look at us when we are making a point? When I am presenting at a meeting, conference or a workshop, I know that my amygdalae, our ‘fear factory’, are quick to generate a feeling of concern that I may have lost someone’s interest if I see them looking out the window, staring at their fingernails or into space.
But is there another explanation? [Read more…]
When you’re at a party, a bar, deciding where to sit on a bus, serving a customer, interviewing someone, meeting your new boss, meeting staff as their new boss, watching new neighbours move in – how long does it takes you to ‘sum someone up’? What if you see the face of an alleged criminal on the television? And how long does it take when you meet your daughter’s new boyfriend or your boyfriend’s new girl? Two minutes? Ten minutes? Think again.
I am sure you would say you make a considered decision and don’t rush to conclusions. You might say: ‘I always give someone the benefit of the doubt’. But we all know it doesn’t work like that – and the science appears to back up what really happens.
According to some research published in the Journal of Psychological Science by Professor Alex Todorov of Princeton University, it takes us less than 1/10th of a second to decide if we trust someone or not. We respond intuitively to faces so rapidly that our reasoning minds may not have time to influence our reaction. And our intuitions about attraction and trust are among those we form the fastest.
“The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn’t stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance,” says Todorov, “We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way.”
Why does this happen? Can we change our reaction? [Read more…]
Ever since she was a child Amy loved to swim. She was one of those water babies that just seemed at home in a pool or in the ocean. As Amy grew up she went to swimming lessons and from a very young age, began to excel. Amy spent most of her spare time in the pool, she loved it. The feeling of weightlessness brought back memories of summers at the beach; even the smell of chlorine or salt water reminded her of happy times.
Amy began to train long hours early in the mornings with a coach who saw her obvious potential. She got up everyday at 5am and trained before school. Some mid winter mornings it seemed like madness to be up at the crack of dawn doing laps in a freezing pool. She was often so tired that homework took a back seat. But Amy never faltered, every time she took to the water she felt alive.
Although she began competing at a young age Amy never really won anything. She always made the finals but throughout her adolescence she just didn’t have the physical speed of some of her peers.
Sometimes she felt like giving up but her love of swimming drove her on through countless failures and hours of training. Even when it seemed she couldn’t go on, something inside her pushed her forward. She trained harder, spent longer in the pool and at the gym. Her goal to be the world’s best was an obsession and she would not let anything stand in her way. She was so afraid of not being able to achieve what she so desperately wanted that she fought harder at every turn.
Amy was devastated when her coach and her family finally persuaded her that although she was fast, she was not fast enough to have a future career in swimming. In fact they were worried that she might not have a career at all if she didn’t spend more time on school work. Amy felt like her world had come to an end. [Read more…]
I want to share the story of Tracy. Tracy landed her dream job working for a start up company. She was to be part of a team to launch a new and exciting product. Although apprehensive, Tracey couldn’t wait to start. She was the most junior in the team of five but she specialized in an area in which the others were limited. Life was looking good.
Almost as soon as she started, Tracy felt intimidated by the others in the group. They were all experienced and talented. Sensibly, Tracy made a conscious decision to just put her head down and work to the best of her ability.
However, almost from the start, she had trouble accepting feedback and guidance from her team leader. Even the smallest piece of advice or direction made her feel angry and insecure. In fact, she had a number of quite emotional altercations with her team leader. Not so sensibly, after each one, she sent an email to another team member complaining about the team leader.
[Read more…]