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Peak Performance Resources for Leaders by Leaders

Tag: Personal Leadership Page 2 of 7

The Sweet Spot

competing forces.001
I was inspired to put together this diagram to highlight the competing forces of risk and return (also known as reward). As I sat on the couch one evening a thought came to me about what separates successful leaders from everyone else.

Successful leaders aren’t smarter. They certainly aren’t more conservative. They do seem to take a lot of risks and for the most part emerge unscathed. Once in a while you will see a leader crash and burn only to rise from the ashes. Unless it is incapacitating or life threatening… most disasters won’t keep a true leader down.

Lots of people have visions of a future they would like to create or see others create, however most of these visionaries never manifest their vision into reality. You could say its easy to dream and quite another thing to take it all the way to realizing it.

The best leaders not only inspire others to follow but also acquire missing knowledge and apply it through successful execution on the route to mastery. This takes balancing risk and return.

The same is true of investing and entrepreneurship. Ask any successful investor or entrepreneur and they will tell you that maximizing returns comes with high risk and that minimizing risk also limits potential returns. The Sweet Spot (The Zone) is found by seeking a balance between these two competing forces. In order to stay in the Sweet Spot takes constant learning, execution and application of the knowledge gained.

When you stop learning, stop applying and stop executing you drop out of The Zone and become either over conservative or take unwise risks that are akin to gambling.

Most people fixate on one end of the spectrum or the other and often wildly swing between the two.

Consider for a moment, what would happen to your FLOW if you followed this simple 4 step strategy:

  1. Locate the Sweet Spot by asking “what does OPTIMUM look like?”
  2. Move into the Sweet Spot
  3. Make ongoing adjustments to stay in the Sweet Spot
  4. Assess the downside risks and develop a strategy to mitigate them
  5. Inventory the potential upside and implement a strategy to capitalize on it

The key is to not fight competing forces… work with them!

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Art de Vivre – Joie de Vivre

artist
It’s all about personal quality of life. What good is it to have wealth, power, influence and yet feel miserable?

It is easy to rush through life, from meeting to meeting, event to event and not even notice the details. Small things. Important things.

Numb seems to be the new normal for many people. Is it any wonder that drug use is at an all-time high? The path from numb to joy of living is long, winding and often akin to playing snakes and ladders. “Back to square one” seems an all too often occurrence.

Unlike board games, in life we can never go back. No matter how it feels we can never unlearn an experience because every event, every moment forever changes us. What we can do is change our mind about what the experience means. Old experiences can offer new lessons.

Accepting emotions – all of them – is the “secret sauce” to experiencing joy in life. Rushing serves to deepen the numbness… lingering opens up the flavors of experience and allows the senses to activate. Feelings rise. Both wanted and unwanted.

Instead of crashing through life, designing a career, a certain amount of money… what would happen if one lived as if life itself were a work of art?

Become your own artist and infuse art into everything you do…

Art de Vivre: your smile… your hair… your clothes… your work… your house… your car… your cup of coffee… your expression… your posture… your writing… your cooking… your dinner setting… your afternoon snack… your hand holding… your conversation… your travel… your love notes… your attitude… your dreams… your nightmares… your lovemaking… your decor… your office… your voicemail… your entertaining… your values… your beliefs… your vacations… your expression when you eat… your hug when you meet a friend… your handshake when you meet a stranger… your desert… your nutrition… your hydration… your garden… your sunglasses… your shoes… your socks… your aging… your death…

Yes! All of life is art. Mastering the joy of living – in the moment – with people you love is what makes life worthwhile.

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Knowledge Capital & Personal Development

Since more than 3/4 of the top-developed nation’s working population are engaged in the service sectors, the intellectual capital and varying levels of development of these people are a major factor in a nation’s competitiveness.

And so it is among competing firms.  They do similar things, with the same people, for similar clients, using similar technology at more or less the same prices.  However, data shows that there are wide differences in performance between competing firms.  Why is this?  What is the key factor that is different?

A business is comprised of a group of people who have come together to play a specific role in the success of the business.  If the business is to grow, then its people must grow.  If the people are small-minded, unmotivated and not very creative – then the business will reflect this.

On the other hand, if the team members see themselves as vital, contributing, and able to excel, then the business will reflect this also.  Many organizations invest time and money in the professional development of their people; however, they neglect their team’s personal development.

Investing in the ongoing personal development and training of your team is one of the best investments you can make.  If someone makes $50,000 a year and can generate you $500,000 in value, why not take this person and increase their skill, ability, talent, attitude, and education, so that they can add a million dollars in value?

A $50,000 investment that brings a $1 million return is a very, very valuable asset.  There is no better investment that companies can make than in the education and development of their own people.

Areas of personal development include:

  • Relationship skills
  • Interpersonal communication skills
  • Emotional health and self-esteem
  • Personal responsibility
  • Self-motivation
  • Financial Intelligence
  • Personal Leadership

Q&A > What Does It Mean To CONFRONT?

Here is the definition of Confront:

CONFRONT: n. 1. An action of being able to face without flinching or avoiding. 2. The ability to be there comfortably and perceive.

So we see that to confront means to be able to see what is there, comfortably without flinching, wanting to withdraw or running away. Often, to fully understand a word, it is easier to look at the opposite. What does “non-confront” mean? It simply means the inability to see what is there. An inability to face something.

Why can’t we confront something? Because to confront means PAIN. It is too painful to view so we withdraw and refuse to look at the area.

Notice that the definition describes confront as an ability? It isn’t something you do, it is an ability that we develop over time. The ability to see more and more of the truth.

There is also what is call “low-confront” which is where a person can confront a little, can see a little of the truth of what is there… But not all of it.

How do you improve your ability to confront? The same way you improve any other ability, focus, attention and practice. And, dealing with the pain that had you not confronting the area in the first place.

As you can see, the ability to confront is directly connected to the ability to handle change. If a person can’t confront the future, or the unknown… Then they will stay in their comfort zone, and stuck in the past.

There are a whole set of processes to assist anyone in improving their ability to confront. These are available as part of the Optima Program.

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© Goldzone Education. All rights reserved.

On Self-Knowledge

– By Kahlil Gibran
And a man said, “Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.”
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

ZONE TIPS > Your Feelings Are Not Reliable

Feelings are important to our experience of living as human beings. It is said that all mammals have some feelings; however, as a human being, we have the widest range of feelings. Beyond the basic triad of pain, pleasure and numb, we have a lot of nuances to describe how we feel at any given moment — about everything we experience.

When it comes to making decisions, even the most rational, seemingly emotionless decision-makers are, unbeknownst to them, influenced by their feelings — even if they are not consciously aware of them. Even no feeling is a feeling.

Because of past things that have happened to us (both real and imagined) we tend to have conflicting emotions, as well as stacks of misplaced emotions, that get projected onto items, areas, subjects and people that they do not belong to.

ZONE TIPS > Counter Intention

Most people/companies fail in their performance improvement goals because they only address their intention and leave out their unconscious COUNTER-INTENTION…

ZONE TIPS > I Choose

Rather than say “I need” or “I want” say “I choose”… Who wants to be needy and wanting? Better to make and express what you are choosing! It also reinforces the concept that you are choosing.

Why Should I Invest in Personal Development?

This question is often asked by two different types of people:

  1. People who are aggressively pursuing their goals and are focused on bottom line returns.
  2. People who are doing the minimum, are disinterested and taking what life gives them.

For the rest of us, it seems obvious that by investing in ourselves, our skills, our knowledge and our abilities, that we will advance in life and get more of what we want.

Movie: Flash of Genius

This is an exceptional movie with an awesome cast.  “Flash of Genius” tells the story of one man whose fight to receive recognition for his ingenuity would come at a heavy price.  Nobody thought he could win.  He becomes obsessed with justice and the conviction that his life’s work be acknowledged by those who stood to benefit.

This movie is about standing up for yourself – even though you may be the only one who believes in you and your mission.  This movie is also about justice and the price you may have to pay to get it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSd1BS8E3RE&w=560&h=315]

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