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.
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…]
We all have memories we wish we could forget.
Unfortunately getting rid of them is far more complex than the ease with which we lay them down in our brains.
But the neuroscientists are making progress all the time.
Here’s a progress piece in Mind and Brain, Scientific American August edition. It’s worth the read.
You may have good reason to. As this research seems to show, your amygdala goes onto high alert.
I’d love to see comparative research between yelling or screaming at someone at work, at home, watching it at the movies and even riding the best rides at Disneyworld.
Is anyone aware of any of this comparative research?
Why Humans Are Naturally Affected By The Sound Of Screaming