Happy Monday to all my #DREAMERS (and you know who you are). Here’s a Monday pick-me-up just in case you have forgotten how fabulous you are. Remember, we aren’t selling our joy and we sure as hell aren’t giving it away for free. I recommend eating chocolate while listening!
Shout out to the original DREAMERS: Char, Diana, Pamela, Freida and Janice as well as my BFF and Honorary Dreamer Barbara Kapp. Mad Love Mondays and Always!
Genesis 9:12
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come.
I am determined to make myself a better leader, and I just may be able to take some of you with me on this journey. I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t always end up in a leadership role in almost every area of my life. I once had a corporate trainer tell me that if you label someone a leader and continue to treat them as such, they will begin to exhibit the traits whether they particularly want the job or not. Obviously, negative labels work the same way. I personally blame my first grade teacher, Mrs. Haynes, for planting this leadership bug in me. The label: Tall kid leads the line. I ran into her at Wal-Mart in Huntsville, Texas a couple of months ago when I was visiting the family and got the chance to tell her how she was still impacting my life today, LOL! She seemed to love that.
How many times have you been at the dinner table with family or friends and the next question is: “What does everybody want to do next?” Some folks just sit there and wait on the answer, and I feel as though they are asking me to decide. So the label of leader sticks with me, and I’ve decided to embrace that role more effectively and authentically. I truly appreciated the following post by Susan Tardanico, and wanted to share it with you.
Susan Tardanico, Contributor
Forbes.com 9/08/2011
Phonies. Have you ever worked for one? They say one thing and do another. They
tell people what they want to hear. Their views morph with popular opinion.
They’re the ones you can’t pin down, and they avoid taking a stand on just
about anything. When we work for someone we deem inauthentic, we do not
willingly support them because we don’t trust them. On the flip side, research
reveals that when we believe a leader is the real deal –- a person of
integrity and character – we are much more likely to go the extra mile and
stand by them in the best and worst of times. With trust in leaders at
all-time lows, it’s time to consider that personal authenticity may be our
greatest leadership asset.
I used to believe that phonies made a conscious decision to hide their true
selves from the rest of the world in a duplicitous identity shell-game. But
after working with leaders for many years, I’ve concluded that only a small
percentage is actually that Machiavellian and that the majority is simply
lost. They don’t know who they are, and nowhere does this become more obvious
than when they’re in a visible leadership role.
Perhaps in all the gymnastics of leadership – the politics, the management
fads and techniques, the expected behaviors imposed on us by our bosses,
organizations and subordinates – we’ve lost ourselves as people. Or maybe
we never really found ourselves to begin with. Leadership guru Warren Bennis
said that letting the self emerge is the essential task of leaders. Indeed,
leadership is, first and foremost, all about you. People often have a
misguided notion that leadership is about everyone else. But if a leader
hasn’t journeyed inside first to get clear on his or her values, strengths,
passion and vision, their lack of authentic grounding will cause them to
behave in inconsistent ways, eroding trust and undermining their leadership
effectiveness.
Curiously, most MBA and leadership development programs barely focus on
the topic of authenticity. There are many assessment tools that help leaders
become more aware of their management style and how they’re perceived, but
most stop short of helping them dig down deep and answer some fundamental
questions about who they are and how it manifests in their leadership. Maybe
there’s an assumption that these questions already have been asked and
answered; that we’ve all heeded the words of the great Socrates who implored
us to “know thyself.” But experience tells us otherwise. Take an informal
polling of your friends and colleagues. Chances are they, like most people,
are unable to answer four basic yet all-important questions: What’s most
important to you? (Core values) What are you good at? (Strengths) What excites
and inspires you? (Passion) What do you want? (Vision).
If you don’t know how to answer some or all of these questions, you’re not
alone. Answering them fully and honestly is not an easy task because it
requires intense introspection. But the payoff can be transformational, giving
you the kind of clarity that enables you to lead your life, lead others and
manage your career with intention, making choices that are more aligned with
who you are, and in the process, gaining the commitment and loyalty of those
around you.
Values
Our values are what we believe and stand for; our convictions about the things we deem to be most important in life. Values are the stuff of our character; the core of what drives and fulfills us. To get clearer on your values, try using the “Values Explorer” tool from the Center for Creative Leadership. To successfully identify your core values, you must suspend your inner judge and set aside what you believe society, your family or anyone else expects of you. If you make choices based on what you should care about – or shouldn’t care about – then you are moving further away from the core of who you are – not closer to it. When identifying your values system, there are no right or wrong choices – just authentic and inauthentic ones. Then, think about how you’re living and leading within the context of your top five values. Ask yourself, “are my values evident in how I behave, the choices I’ve made and the way I communicate? Am I truly using my own voice?”
Strengths
As leaders, job No. 1 is to surround ourselves with the right people; to build
a team with complementary strengths and diverse perspectives. How can we
effectively accomplish this if we don’t understand our own strengths and, in
turn, are able to recognize the strengths in others? Strengths are our innate
talents, the things we’re naturally good at. Business culture has long been
focused on trying to address the weaknesses in people versus unlocking the
potential of their strengths. As women, we tend to focus more intensely on our
weaknesses than men do. This translates into missed opportunity for us as
leaders and organizations.
Passion
Simply put, passion is what jazzes and excites us; what consumes us with
palpable emotion. When we’re engaged in something we’re passionate about,
we tap into a seemingly unending wellspring of energy and resilience.
If you are unclear on what you’re truly passionate about, the best thing you
can do is pay attention. Only you know how you feel as you move through the
circumstances and activities of your life. Where do you find your greatest
joy? In what circumstance do you feel you’re in the zone, in harmony with all
that’s around you, excelling without even trying, filled with unending energy?
Many people feel that when it comes to our work life, having passion is nice
but not necessary. I cannot think of worse drudgery than getting up every day
and doing something you’re not passionate about. Passion is what carries you
through the tough times, helps you inspire others and excel at what you do.
Vision
Our vision is our desired destination; the end-game we’re striving to achieve.
It’s what we want. Writing a personal vision statement is a very powerful,
often life-changing exercise because it focuses, informs and illuminates your
way forward. You describe in vivid terms the ideal picture of all aspects of
your life – career, family, community, health, spirituality — unbounded by
current constraints and circumstance. A good vision answers the questions,
“what do I want to be, do, have, and contribute in life?”
Developing a vision requires you to think big and long-term. Try not to get
caught up in issues of process (how you will get there) – that’s the job of
strategies and tactics. Also, understand that you won’t travel a completely
linear path from current state to the achievement of your vision. Finally,
remember that your vision will evolve over time. The key is to get started!
Leadership may ultimately be about leading and inspiring others, but it begins
inside, with each of us as individuals. Our ability to achieve greatness as
leaders hinges on our ability to know ourselves, know what matters, and act in
accordance with who we are. When we go through the process of exploring
each of these “prongs of authenticity,” we gain inspiring and invigorating
clarity that helps us be exceptional leaders — of our lives and of other
people.
In my never-ending quest for positivity and motivation, I came across the following post and had a moment of confirmation. I hope that the message will do the same for you. #preachingtothechoir
I often write about the things I believe we all should be doing, trying or experimenting with in order to maximize our success and happiness. However, it’s not always the things we do that make the biggest difference in our lives; it’s often the things we avoid doing that have the biggest effect. As human beings, we have a strong aversion to not doing; we feel that in order to produce results, there must be an initial action.
However, because we are almost always doing something, piling on more and more often has a negative effect, rather than a positive one. Among the mentally strong, there are several actions that are avoided in order to produce the greatest benefit in the shortest period of time. These actions are those that the mentally strong avoid, and that we should consider adapting as our own:
1. Dwelling On The Past
Mentally strong individuals focus on the present moment and on the near future. They understand that the past is out of our control and the far future is about as predictable as the weather this winter.
2. Remaining In Their Comfort Zone
The comfort zone is a dangerous place, a dark abyss where anyone who remains there for too long loses his or herself entirely. Staying within your comfort zone is giving up on life.
3. Not Listening To The Opinions Of Others
Only the foolish believe themselves to be sufficient in all regards. When it comes to brainstorming, ideas can’t so much be forced as they can be caught. A good idea is a good idea, regardless of whether or not you came up with it. Don’t let your ego get the better of you; if someone has great advice to give, take it.
4. Avoiding Change
What the mentally strong understand that the mentally weak do not is that change is unavoidable. Trying to avoid the inevitable is pointless. Therefore, trying to avoid change is pointless; it’s a mere waste of time and energy.
5. Keeping A Closed Mind
You don’t know everything. Even the things you believe yourself to know are likely to not be entirely true. If you keep a closed mind, you are preventing yourself from learning new material. If you stop learning, you stop living.
6. Letting Others Make Decisions For Them
Only you should be making your own decisions; you can’t allow others to make them for you. All this does is shift the responsibility from you to someone else, but the only person failing in the end is you. If you don’t have the courage to fail, then you don’t have the courage to succeed.
7. Getting Jealous Over The Successes Of Others
When others succeed, you should be happy. If they can do it, so can you. The success of others does not, in any way, lessen the chances of you succeeding. If anything, it should motivate you to keep pushing forward.
8. Thinking About The High Possibility Of Failure
Our thoughts control our perspective; our perspective controls our results. The mentally strong understand this and use this to their advantage. There’s always the chance you may fail, but as long as there is the chance you may succeed, it’s worth trying.
9. Feeling Sorry For Themselves
Sh*t happens. Life can be hard. People get hurt; others die. Life isn’t all roses and butterflies. You will fall off that horse again and again and again. The question is, are you strong enough to keep getting back on it?
10. Focusing On Their Weaknesses
Although working on our weaknesses does have its benefits, it’s more important to focus on banking on our strengths. The most well-rounded person is not the person that gets the furthest in life. Being average in all regards makes you average. However, mastering a certain skillset or trait will allow you to beat the competition with less effort.
11. Trying To Please People
A job well done is a job well done, no matter who is judging the final product. You can’t please everybody, but you can always manage to do your very best.
12. Blaming Themselves For Things Outside Their Control
The mentally strong know the things they can control, understand the things they cannot control, and avoid even thinking about that which is completely out of their hands.
13. Being Impatient
Patience isn’t just a virtue; it is the virtue. Most people don’t fail because they aren’t good enough, or aren’t capable of winning or succeeding. Most people fail because they are impatient and give up before their time has come.
14. Being Misunderstood
Communication is key in any properly functioning system. When it comes to people, things get a bit more complicated. Simply stating information is never enough; if the receiving party misunderstands you, your message is not being properly relayed. The mentally strong do their best to be understood and have the patience to clear up misunderstandings.
15. Feeling Like You’re Owed
You aren’t owed anything in life. You were born; the rest is up to you. Life doesn’t owe you anything. Others don’t owe you anything. If you want something in life, you only owe it to yourself to go out and get it. In life, there are no handouts.
16. Repeating Mistakes
Make a mistake once, okay. Make a mistake twice… not so okay. Make the same mistake a third time, you may need to consider giving up alcohol and drugs. You’re either stupid or permanently high.
17. Giving Into Their Fears
The world can be a scary place. Some things frighten us with good cause, but most of our fears are illogical. If you know that you want to try something, try it. If you’re scared, then understand that being scared of failing must mean that succeeding means a whole lot to you.
18. Acting Without Calculating
The mentally strong know better than to act before completely understanding the situation at hand. If you have time to ponder over something and cover all your bases, then do so. Not doing so is pure laziness.
19. Refusing Help From Others
You’re not Superman; you can’t do it all. Even if you can, why should you? If others are offering to help, let them help. Be social. Listen to their ideas and watch how they do things. You may learn something. If not, then you can teach them something and do what humans are meant to do: socialize.
20. Throwing In The Towel
The biggest weakness in all of humanity is giving up — calling it quits, throwing in the towel. The mentally strong go about things in such a way. Only do things if they are important to you; forget the things that aren’t important to you. If they’re important to you, then pursue them until you succeed. No exceptions, ever.
Credit: PAUL HUDSON • JAN 9, 2014
From one dreamer to another… Thank you for your sacrifice.
As most of my readers know by now, TenaciousM cannot be edited. What I like, I love and that includes people, art, chocolate and music. So I’ve decided to get a conversation going around some of the amazing music from around the world. Please feel free to share your thoughts and/or submissions for repost or shout out here at Egos & Buffaloes.
If I’m going to do my blog justice, I have to start with Ms. Nina Simone. Her musical influence reached worldwide audiences. When my parents used to listened to her I thought she must be the saddest woman in the world. But I realize now that Nina was soulful like no other. Nina Simone accomplished global appeal during a time when the fires of civil rights and women’s rights movements were just being stoked.
Nina Simone (born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.
Born the sixth child of a preacher’s family in North Carolina, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist. Her musical path changed direction after she was denied a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone was later told by someone working at Curtis that she was rejected because she was black. When she began playing in a small club in Philadelphia to fund her continuing musical education and become a classical pianist she was required to sing as well. She was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records, and her rendering of “I Loves You, Porgy” was a hit in the United States in 1958. Over the length of her career Simone recorded more than 40 albums, mostly between 1958—when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue—and 1974.
Between 1974-2003, Simone stayed in Barbados for quite some time. A close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, then persuaded her to go to Liberia. Later, she lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands, before settling in France in 1992. Credit: Wikipedia
Nina Simone’s relevance is still visible today. She wrote “Four Women”, a song about four different stereotypes of African-American women, and included the recording on her 1966 album, “Wild Is the Wind”. The following rendition of the song is performed by Ledisi, Jill Scott, Kelly Price, & Marsha Ambrosius during “Black Girls Rock” in 2010.
As I’m sure that many of you can relate, I’ve had some awful managers over my career. It wasn’t until I became a manager that the definition of good vs bad leader became an acutely sensitive topic for me. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to suck at being a leader. And, it was at the point of questioning the difference that I realized I was still being influenced by my bad experiences with those hideously awful managers. I was experiencing a sort of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that made me run like hell from the next leadership role.
Even with the glaring “DO NOT DRAFT ME AS A LEADER” badge that I wear over my business suits, I continually find myself a habitual leader. Then, in my quest for clarity and self-realization, I found this quote and finally, finally, I get it. I understand why I actually am perfect for the role.
“Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration— of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.” -Lance Secreten
If you are a leader are a manager, you’ve been there. The pressure is on and someone has to ensure productivity. You need to exhibit calm under pressure. Leaders should adopt some proven skills to succeed in the midst of a storm.
Reposted: Personal Advice from Ken Blanchard
Have a positive attitude. Don’t be negative. Your actions can create a positive morale amongst the team. This will be contagious and you will get more out of your team. Try to make your staff believe things are better than they seem, even when the pressure is on. The worst thing you can do is to badmouth any person or department within the company. You can kind of joke about company related issues, but in a lighthearted way. Sometimes a good laugh or feeling of solidarity can work to your benefit, just don’t be malicious or slanderous. It could also come back to haunt you. You would be surprised at the loss of respect you would receive if you acted unprofessionally in this manner. Remember this old adage, “It takes years to build respect, and only seconds to lose it…”
Be passionate about the objectives and organization. When you become passionate about a task, project, or departmental goal, your team will also become passionate. Channel your passion to be the best into your employees. Passion is the key ingredient between being good and being great. You want your department to be exceptional, not just good enough. Be passionate about becoming a world-class organization and your team is sure to follow.
Be enthusiastic and optimistic. Striving for a better future with an energetic drive is contagious. Your team will pick up on the same vibe. They want a better future just as much as you do. Your job is to make them want to be the best and take pride in their work. The more enthusiastic and optimistic you are, the more they can identify with working in a success driven manner.
OWN YOUR CREATIVITY
During the past Christmas holidays, I’d become as over zealous as ever with my decorating. I started with the living room thinking that it would make a sufficient statement. Moreover, there’s the memory of all the years that I got carried away with my quest to out do my last year of yuletide, and the pain of taking the art down.
While flying from the U.S. to Madrid last summer, I sat beside a guy from Israel who was returning home from the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. He explained that after a week of creating and exhibiting art installations, every piece of art was burned down. You could take pictures and videos, but you were not allowed to save any part of your creation.
The week-long event now attracts tens of thousands of participants to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert where they form a temporary experimental community known as Black Rock City. As it has expanded, Burning Man has been forced to adopt certain official rules and policies for safety reasons, but the essential tenets on which the event was founded (immediacy, participation, decommodification, civic and environmental responsibility, radical self-reliance and self-expression) remain the same. Art-making and performance are core components of the Burning Man festival. Each year participants at Burning Man create and perform works inspired by a given theme (recent themes have included: “Evolution,” “American Dream,” “The Green Man,” and “Hope and Fear: The Future”). Free from the confines of the traditional art world, the collaborative environment of the Burning Man has been fertile ground for outsider and visionary art. A permanent organization, The Black Rock Arts Foundation, now offers grants for artists, sponsors interactive art projects at Burning Man, and supports art that carries the values of Burning Man culture (e.g., impermanence, experimentation, and inclusiveness) into the broader community. The Burning Man effigy is an iconic reminder to keep the creative “fires” burning within long after the event has come to a close. Credit: wikifestivals.com
So, my Christmas decorations continued to grow throughout the house and extended outdoors. Each room had it’s own installation, one more over the top than the next. I actually commented that “it looks like a Christmas bomb went off in my house.” I did all of this knowing that the ultimate fate of my work, like the Burning Man, was it’s own destruction after a few weeks of enjoyment.
But the real enjoyment is in the creating. I’m challenging myself to achieve a goal that surpasses what I know I can do already. I’m motivated to prove something to myself and keep my own creative fires burning within.
For the first time in several years, I am feeling my own enthusiasm about the New Year from everyone in my circle. Maybe after years of treading water in a bad economy, everyone woke up on January 1, 2014, and said: “Enough!” Enough whining, enough pessimism, enough fearing that home values will tumble, another Bernie Madoff is already in “pod form” (i.e., Invasion of the Body Snatchers), waiting to take on the body of a Wall Street financier, or that the sky is falling. Just enough already!
I am very excited by this new optimism, and here’s hoping that it carries over past Valentine’s Day.
The following is reposted from tylerperry.com: “Don’t Stay Too Long” @ Wed, Jan 8, 2014. Perfect message!
Now the young eagle doesn’t know that it’s time to fly, but the wisdom and the bird’s eye view of the mother knows that it’s time for the chicks to leave the nest. So you know what she does? She doesn’t bring food to the babies anymore, and this is what I found fascinating. Many times she will fly around the nest with the food in her beak so that the young eagles will be tempted or so hungry that they are forced to fly out of the nest and take it out of her beak. Stay with me I’m going somewhere here. As I thought about this, I thought about my life and how many times I was in a very comfortable space. I had all I needed. There was no need for me to go any further because I was comfortable. I wanted to stay there forever. You have to be careful when you get comfortable and stay too long. It’s easy to stop dreaming when your belly is full. You won’t feel the need to fly at all.
The truth is, as long as I was there in that really comfortable space, I wasn’t fulfilling my own destiny or my purpose. I wasn’t flying, I was content. Remember this, your greatest prayers are not usually answered in comfort. Think about it. I can really get deep into this with stories from my past but you’re probably tired of reading already… LOL… so I’ll try and wrap it up.
It took an uncomfortable situation or being hungry to make me get out and fly. Many times in life things are going well, but then everything that was so great changes and we wonder why. We wonder what happened. We are caught off guard. I am of the opinion that in those times God, who knows when it’s time for us to leave the nest, is allowing it to become uncomfortable so that we can move on to our next mission in life. Our next hope, our next dream, our next level.
After not realizing this for many years and resisting changes and going through hell, I’m glad to say that I have become so sensitive to when it’s time to move that I will move without having to have the turmoil. I’m telling you I was so stubborn that the house had to burn down for me to move. Now I know better. I’m aware of when it starts to happen, like things happen that don’t make any sense. People you have been friends with or in business with or otherwise for years just seem to go crazy and you don’t know why. What I’ve learned in those moments is that it is a time to fly. Business changes, jobs go away, friends break your heart, marriages end, relationships end, and most times all these things are signs that it’s time to take flight to your next level.
Nobody likes change, I get it, but don’t be angry or bitter when things change. Don’t be mad with people, especially when you know you did right by them and you did all you could do for the friendship or relationship. I’m sorry to tell you this my friend, but this moment was not about them it was all about you. I’m telling you if God has allowed you to become so uncomfortable in your situation, whatever it is, then its time for you to move! Don’t be afraid, just fly!
Last thing and then I’m done ;-). there is one part of the eagle story that I haven’t told you yet, and this is my favorite part. If those baby eagles get out of the nest and they are trying to fly and it’s not going well, then that same mother bird that provided for them while they were in the nest, that same eagle will fly under the baby eagle to keep it from falling, to keep it on course, and give it a sense of security. God’s got you, don’t be afraid! He won’t let you fall! Now here’s the question: what situation in your life has become so uncomfortable that you feel like you’re being starved for what you need? Maybe its God’s way of telling you it’s time to fly! It’s time to fly for your own dreams and your own hopes and goals. Fly for true love and real hope. This is your moment to fly, in 2014. Make this the year that you leave the nest without fear.
Egos & Buffaloes 