Magic Monday: Managing Your P&L Is Not What You Think

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax.

Where can you find the magic at work today?

In order to get your profit and loss (P&L) sheet to where you want it, you need to better manage your passion and leadership (P&L).

I define a leader as someone who articulates a vision and gets people engaged and aligned in achieving that vision. It’s easier when the vision is aligned with your passion – what excites you, gets your juices flowing.

When you are on fire, you create the energy and conditions to light up everyone around you. When you do this, you are also unleashing other people’s passion and their leadership. One could lead people, projects or evolution of thought. Today, technology has dissolved hierarchies and traditional barriers. Thought leaders and innovators are emerging from all corners of the globe and pockets of organizations.

My friend Dan Brodax, who is singing in the Magic Monday video above, is a great example of entrepreneurialism, passion and leadership. He has a background in marketing and business development, and a few years ago, decided to finally pursue his two passions: music and helping people. Although he is not a trained musician or music therapist, he is healing people through music. His business is HeartSounds: Find the Way Back to Your Heart Through Song.

He takes his guitar on the road and visits assisted living residences. He gathers people in wheelchairs, walking, infirmed and cogent in hospital and community rooms, and hands out musical instruments. Dan not only sings very energetically, but he leads the residents through a musical experience, where they make music themselves. Last week, a 56 year old man, who could not talk due to a neurological condition, took pen to paper. His note to Dan said it was the happiest birthday he ever had listening to Dan’s music.

Dan is energized by getting folks who are sedentary involved in an activity. The residents are renewed by the music and the energy Dan exhibits. It’s a synergy that builds on itself. Dan markets himself as a Musical Engager. This is not a job title but a description he created to relay his unique service.

Today there is a lot of destructive passion exhibiting itself in unrest in the world and employee disengagement in organizations. What if the world was set on fire with aligned passion? Anything is possible.

This week’s reflection: Where can you more closely align you passion with your leadership? How can you unleash other’s passion and leadership?

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

The Enchanted Trail

Earlier, I was feeling a bit of a post-holiday let down. It’s common to feel this after a long weekend of big meals, seeing family and friends. I’ve been eating leftovers and feeling full. My daughter went back to college – it felt like so little time and she was mostly with her friends. All this added up to, I was not feeling particularly inspired, but I knew I needed to fulfill the commitment I made to write daily this month.

I started to approach my writing from the perspective of my old self (Susan 1.0) – one who is disciplined, organized and driven – makes a list and checks the tasks off  as it’s done. There are many benefits to this approach. What happened along the way is that I depleted myself and lost my joy and inspiration. This was a number of years ago and it’s been a journey for me to reclaim a sense of flow in my work – particularly my writing (Susan 2.0).

As my old self started to take the drivers wheel, I consciously said, “No, this doesn’t feel right.” It was a gorgeous day, unusually mild here in Connecticut. Instead I took my Bichon Frise dog, Willy Wonka Benj Shaner-Bradford – we call him Willy for short – on a hike. I intended to go to a state park that is 15 minutes from my house. Less than halfway there I saw a sign I never noticed before. It was a for a Land Trust. I stopped short and took a quick left into a small parking lot, with capacity for maybe five cars. I looked around and, while it didn’t look like much of a formal trail, amidst the leaves, I did see some yellow markings on trees.

So, Willy and I started down the trail. I noticed some of the markings were tiny signs that said, “Enchanted Trail.” I thought, wow, that name just sends me to a different place – I felt lighter. I brought my ipod and was listening to one of my favorite tracks that lifts my spirits. Willy was walking more in sync with me than he usually does. The trail markings went from yellow to orange to blue. I just kept moving, suddenly noticing Willy and I were deep in the woods with no other beings in sight.

It occurred to me that this walk is a metaphor for how I have been moving through my life and my business lately – managing myself to keep the big picture in mind, while I focus on the micro management of the very next best step. I have moments of being scared or uncertain, but I look for signs along the way that I am on the right path. I keep breathing deeply, which calms my mind and body down. I trust the markers of those who have gone before me.

As the sun started to sink and it’s reflection made it hard to see the markers, I had a few minutes where I lost my way. I suddenly felt disoriented…I couldn’t tell if I was really headed back the way I came or headed off in a new direction. I didn’t panic but decided to enjoy the adventure. I walked a little ways and eventually saw some markers I remembered having seen on the way in. Soon, I spotted my car through the brush.

Getting outside; breathing clean, fresh air; having some solitude; appreciating the beauty of the woods – all left me feeling peacefully revitalized. I had a mindset shift that, if I had stayed sitting at my desk in my head, would not have happened.

The invitation is to find the enchantment in the trails we traverse in our daily lives.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Reflections in Radio Land: Holidays & Integrating Grief

Here is my first radio show with Xander Gibb. Thank you Xander! I enjoyed the show. We talked about celebrating the holidays, managing ourselves as multi-dimensional people, and our guest was Margaret Echeverria. She talked about her experience with her son dying from SIDS.

Xandermonium Episode 155

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Follow Up Friday: Exhale Fullness

Have you ever had the experience of being really full and letting out a big exhale sigh? Aaah. When you exhale through your mouth, you are working on your digestive system. It’s a detoxification breath. Usually this is an unconscious gesture. Your body is doing what it needs to, to reset itself.

Our bodies naturally tend toward equilibrium. When we don’t have enough food, it will reset it’s metabolism so you won’t starve. And when you’ve eaten too much, it will do things to try and digest the food, even when it feels overtaxed.

I had this experience this morning and I associated it with the mindfulness work we have been doing all week in this blog. I’ve been focused on abundance or have more than enough.

It’s not so much what we experience in life but the perspective and meaning we associate with an experience that shapes our reality.

I was scheduled to teach my weekly kundalini yoga class this morning at 7 am. I thought of cancelling it, but didn’t. As I hung out with my family last night feeling stuffed, I dreaded getting up to teach the class and wished I had cancelled. Here in the states, the day after Thanksgiving is one spent sleeping in after a carbohydrate overload, shopping or hanging out with loved ones visiting.
So, I was not surprised when no one came to class this morning. I could have been upset, bummed, annoyed, etc. Instead, I did my daily yoga and meditation practice to an empty room. I decided when I got home I would climb back into bed and take a nap as I had planned a day off with my daughter who was home from college and still sleeping.

As I drove home, I suddenly noticed I took a big exhale and, not only felt physically full (I hadn’t eaten yet) but felt a deep sense of how full my life was. I had cooked yesterday for my daughter, her friend, a friend of mine and her daughter. Between turkey and pie everyone fell asleep on various couches in different rooms. I stayed awake and cleaned. I was not upset that I had little help cleaning. Instead I felt a deep sense of gratitude for having a full house – and one where guests felt comfortable enough to find a couch and drop on it.

I associated my deep exhale this morning with how I have been working on reworking my conditioning to notice and appreciate how full my life is. It’s no coincidence that a contract I have been working on for three months finally closed the day before Thanksgiving. One has deep exhales when they feel full. It’s enough. I don’t need anymore.

Focusing on what we want, not what we don’t want, helps us get more of what we want.

Gratitude grows.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Shifting Your Conditioning: Flowing in Your Spiritual Domain

All week we’ve been exploring how you rewire your conditioning to better serve you in what you want to have in your life. It requires changing your thought pattern. You can release a negative thought pattern and replace it with a positive one – and sometimes you can just replace it with a positive one and the negative one automatically just falls away.

The key with this entire process is being tuned in, not tuned out of yourself. Notice what has you associating strong, positive emotions to your thoughts and moving them physically through your body.

When all domains – mental, emotional and physical are in sync, then you have, what I call, a spiritual sense of flow in your life. You are in tune, have purpose, meaning and are deeply engaged with, and loving your life. It doesn’t mean that you can’t experience a sense of spirit when things are difficult or you are in struggle. Sometimes these are the most spiritually initiating times in your life. You feel yourself through the pain. The spirit comes through with the work to rise above the challenge and persevere and carry on, even though.

Amidst life, one kind of thought rises above all others. It is like the queen of all thoughts that possesses super powers, working on layers of deeper emotions we aren’t always aware of – this is GRATITUDE. Other similar words are Thankful, appreciative. Any thought or emotion where you bless, recognize or are grateful for what you currently have, who you are or what do you do. When this permeates your entire being, then life flows peacefully within and around you, even if your environment is in crisis or chaos. It’s finding your peace within.

Today, in the United States, we celebrate our national holiday: Thanksgiving. The original intent was to sit around a dining table and feast on the harvest of the season – to share our bounty with family, friends and neighbors. This is my favorite holiday as it is about making and sharing good food. We nourish our body with food, mind with great conversation, emotions with connections, and spirit with an overall sense of vitality even if there is still pain and suffering in the world. We can all pause and say thank you for this one precious life.

Thank you for being part of this journey with me. Regardless of where you live, today I invite you to identify just one person, experience, thing you are grateful for in your life. I guarantee, it will uplift you and shed some of the toxins that are hiding out in one of your domains.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Shifting Your Conditioning: Managing Your Physical Domain

So, we’ve talked about changing your thoughts, getting clear on your emotions and clearing your negative emotions. All of this is connected to, and manifests in, your physical body.

When you notice feelings that you don’t want – such as fear, terror, panic – they show up in your body with tense muscles, a constricted throat or abdomen, clenched fists and furrowed brows. You might notice the bodily sensations before you are aware of your thoughts or emotions. Think of each of these domains as a portal through which you enter to become aware of what is going on with you. Some people are more mentally, emotionally or kinesthetically-oriented.

In the physical domain, all of life happens through expansion and contraction. Negative emotions create tension and contraction. Positive emotions are expansive, relaxing and uplifting.

It’s important to release the tension in a safe way – such as going for a walk, running, punching pillows, lifting weights or some other kind of physical exercise or activity. I know someone who goes on a raging cleaning and decluttering binge when they are angry. Also, what you put in or on your body also plays a role in how resilient your body is in handling the stress and toxins that negative thoughts and emotions create.

With physical activity, the single most important thing you can do is to breathe more deeply. This gets more oxygen to the brain. Movement gets the blood circulating, literally moving the emotions and thoughts through the body. The focus is on release and discharge, not holding onto these thoughts and feelings that are not serving you.

Once the negative emotions and thoughts are discharged, you want to ground the positive ones in your body as well. Going for a walk in nature can be meditative and relaxing, allowing your body to open up to expansive ways of thinking, being and knowing. Stretching your body, specifically rolling and releasing your shoulders helps.

Try closing your eyes and reciting outloud to yourself your new mantra. The example I used yesterday was “I have abundance.” As you take deep breaths in, visualize what this means for you. Allow yourself time and space to be in your body with these positive thoughts and emotions – literally stretch into them to take them in. Allow yourself full expression of the joy, fullness, and excitement of this thought and the emotions it evokes.

When you are happy and enthusiastic you might jump up and down, put a skip in your step, dance, hug someone, clap, hum or sing – even as an adult! The more you can play with this physical way of expressing the new thought and emotion, the more likely it is that you cement the new conditioning. Repetition and having fun help.

So, give it a try: grab a hold of possibility and breathe deeply into it while skipping a beat.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Shifting Your Conditioning: Choosing Your Emotional Domain

Yesterday I asked you to rewrite a thought associated with your negative conditioning to make it more positive. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your thought pattern will change. It means you are now aware of the subconscious pattern that has been influencing your life – what you believe to be true. A belief is what you think even if you have no evidence to substantiate it. Beliefs are reinforced by emotions associated with a thought and we look for ways to reinforce our beliefs. We ignore anything that contradicts our beliefs. Now you are going to change a thought and associate other emotions with it and look for ways to reinforce this thought over time.

Having a statement that you say to yourself can be powerful – but only if two things happen – you really believe what you are saying and have some emotion behind it. Once you have an emotionally charged statement you say to yourself over and over, it can’t help but shift your mindset and therefore your actions and results.

For illustrative purposes, I am going to use my example of “I don’t have enough.” This could come into play when thinking about not just money, but enough experience, skills, courage, friends, peace, connections, etc. It can be a negative, self-defeating program running in the background of your mind influencing the way you approach everything. It’s your mindset. When considering the emotional domain, notice what feelings surface as you think of these words. Don’t judge feelings as good or bad.

For me, emotions like fear, defeat, terror, panic surface. How do they serve me? They keep me protected from danger but also can hold me back from things I don’t want to do. At it’s extreme these emotions can paralyze me into non-action. Or they can incite me into action to avoid these feelings – but again, the negative feelings are still running the show.

If I change this phrase to “I have abundance,” this has such a different meaning and feeling. When I dwell on this phrase, feelings like safety, security, feeling full, all surface. I’m not as worried. I need to really believe this is the case, not just recite it to myself or tell myself to feel a certain way. You cannot force yourself to feel certain things – only allow and create the conditions for different feelings to surface.

What helps with this next piece is to visualize and notice all the ways I truly do have abundance like my health, money in the bank, supportive relationships, work I love, etc. When I focus on naming things that are really true, and truly appreciate them, this act associates this thought with these emotions solidifying the conditioning around it. This process requires repetition and choosing to express certain feelings. Your mind got conditioned over many years so it will take practice to shift.

Adding expression, and even music or images (drawings – words or color) can also help with accessing positive emotions. Dwell on your new mantra and enjoy!

Ultimately, the fastest way to release old conditioning is to get really clear about what you are feeling and then to clear the emotions that are negative – detox. Some of this detox is actually a physical process as thoughts and emotions are connected to the body. We are going to continue with the physical domain tomorrow.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: Part 3 of 3 – One Thought Experiment: Shifting Your Conditioning

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax.

Where can you find the magic at work today?

During the last three weeks, we focused on noticing and managing a dominant thought pattern. This week’s focus is on how to shift a pattern that is not working for you. To recap, here are the steps:

1. Notice your thoughts.
2. Understand where your thoughts come from: how these patterns define your belief system and have roots in your subconscious mind, typically conditioning from someone or somewhere else.
3. Shift a thought pattern that is not serving you in the best way.

Sometimes you can shift a pattern just by noticing it; sometimes with insight into the source of the unconscious messaging and the underlying beliefs; and sometimes you need to do some more heavy lifting over time.

To shift it over time, you need to work it in three domains: mental, emotional and physical. When you do this, you are effecting your entire energy field, which effects your vitality of spirit. So there is a fourth domain: a spiritual one. It is how you find meaning, energy and a deep engagement with life. The ways we manage our mind is foundational to vitality, which is why mindfulness practices are so popular today. True mindfulness is about noticing what is being expressed in all these domains, not just the mental one.

Today, I will focus on the mental domain. Tuesday – the emotional; Wednesday – the physical, and Thursday – the spiritual. Friday we will do our follow-up check-in. Mental – Replace your undesired thought pattern with a different thought that will direct your subconscious mind in the direction you want to shift it.

Let’s take my example of “the enoughs” – not having enough, being enough, doing enough. Last week I got clear on where this message came from and now I am clear on how it has served me. It drives me to want to do more, have more and be more. This thought sets the context for how I respond or react to people or events. The positive is, I’m always striving to grow and better myself. The downside is, it can foster exhaustion and a chronic discontentment – to never be happy with who I am or where I am at, what I am doing or what I have.

The key of your next messaging is to get clear on the shift you want to create and craft a new mantra to say to yourself when the old message surfaces. The word mantra refers to where you project (focus) your mind. In crafting your message, ask yourself, how can I retain the benefits of my message (in my case: be better, do/have what I need to), without the downside (exhaustion and discontent)? Here are two possible directions to change my thoughts:

1. To accept who I am, what I do and what I have as is: ENOUGH
Thoughts can change to:
I am enough.
I have enough.
I do enough.
The focus here is on appreciating what is, not changing anything externally. Yet it results in external changes such as making decisions that come from an orientation of being satisfied versus dissatisfied.
Or even more powerful shifts would be to replace the word enough with mantras like:
I love and accept myself exactly as I am.
I have abundance.
I serve in full ways.

2. To recognize that who I am, what I do or what I have is MORE THAN ENOUGH:
I am more than enough – I can ratchet myself back.
I do more than enough – I can take things off my plate.
I have more than enough – I purge and declutter at home (stuff) or at work (projects, emails).
The intent here is to have the thoughts change behavior.

Write down your mantra. Place it in a prominent place – on your phone, on your desk, in your car, on your bathroom mirror. Say it outloud and silently to yourself. Repetition is key. You are rewiring your brain.

Your invitation this week, is to play with new messaging for yourself, working it in all domains: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. What needs to shift in your life at work or at home? It starts with you.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Practice What Works: Pause and Breathe

Why is it that we don’t always practice what we know to be effective? Because we get caught up in the moment. Because we are triggered by something and get in a reactive mode. I know what works for me when I am triggered by something or someone is to pause and breathe. Sometimes I do well with this practice. Sometimes I don’t do so well.

When was the last time someone pressed your buttons? Or you felt attacked? Or you took things personally? Or things didn’t turn out the way you planned or discussed with your co-worker, boss or spouse?

I’m guessing this happens anywhere from one to twenty times a day. We have many opportunities on a daily basis to do a mid-moment, course correction – not just on “correcting other people” but on adjusting ourselves in how we respond to what shows up.

I had this experience today. I’ll just say, I intended to get clarity on why something appeared the way it was. The person receiving my communication felt criticized and attacked me back. I got triggered and was more reactive than I could have been. I realized it would have been move helpful for me to pause, take a breath or come back to it on another day.

But then I did what I tell my clients to do: debriefed with a trusted advisor, reached out to follow up with the person to clear the air going forward, and solidified my resolve to take space in the moment going forward, enlisting support from those who know what I am working on.

Where do you get triggered? Who do you trust to help you stay focused on better managing yourself for better outcomes?

©Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Do What You Cannot Do

I work with people to unleash their passion and personal leadership. I intend to practice what I preach. Fear often gets in the way.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.”

There is a lot of fear circulating on the planet today in light of the recent terrorist attacks. They have generated trauma and are threatening people’s sense of safety and security. When in survival mode, it is difficult to be calm and creative. Since this is the soup we are all collectively swimming in, it can be hard not to be effected by fear and feed it. The invitation is to find what is within your control to effect and take tuned-in action. Tuned-in action is where you are clear on what is within your sphere to influence, and listen with a rational mind, trust your intuition and act.

We all have fears we manage on a daily basis – some large, some insignificant. One of mine was coming up with generating enough content, inspiration and time to write in this blog for 30 days. Instead of backing off from the challenge or stopping, I got started and have been committed to it. Here is what I am discovering – the more I move toward it and work in this space, the more ideas come. Coming out of my meditation this morning, my hand couldn’t move fast enough to jot down ideas pouring out of my head.

What have you been afraid to do that you can get started on today? Take one step.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Follow up Friday: Enough is Enough!

Monday I asked you to analyze your conditioning – to explore where your repetitive thought pattern comes from, what feelings you have about it and if it’s helpful or not. This a lot to think about!

A significant thought pattern I’ve worked with in my life is “the enoughs” (be enough, have enough, do enough). I received this message so many times from so many sources in my life. The message in my family growing up is we never had enough money. I grew up in an educational system that was always sending messages I wasn’t enough or didn’t measure up if I didn’t have all As on my report card. I grew up in a religion that said I wasn’t acceptable enough – I was born bad and I had to spend the rest of my life making up for it. I grew up in a culture that said I always need more things – more food, more toys, more friends, more of everything – to be okay – nothing was ever enough. I went to work for companies that said I didn’t work hard enough or do enough. I didn’t have to look to hard – I was flooded with this message of “not enough.” Wow. It’s quite a mental beating in a way.

How did this serve me? It always had me striving – maniacally driving myself – to do more, be more, have more. I am not a shopper but a collector of books, travel and educational experiences. I could never have enough knowledge or experience. Then one day, I realized how exhausting this was and why I was never satisfied with where I was at, or with myself.

I’ve been aware of, and have worked on this thought pattern for a quite a while now. It’s shifted substantially.

Well, I say now, enough IS enough! I can strive for more to an extent that works for me, not what society says. I can strive to be more of who I am meant to be, in a more sane way. I can accept myself just the way I am, thank you.

Monday, I will talk more about how to go deeper with shifting and releasing a repetitive thought pattern.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Your Energetic Blueprint Runs The Show

I use the term energetic blueprint to refer to the imprinting you have that effects your energy field. Your energy field is the electromagnetic field that surrounds your body anywhere from 3-9 feet around you. How large it is reflects how vital or strong your life force is.

What you think, how you feel and what you put into, or on your body, all effect this field (i.e., drugs, alcohol, food, sex). If you don’t experience the right amount or quality of energy you want in your life, exploring how you manage your personal energy field could be beneficial for you.

What you think includes your mental model of the world – the rules you have that govern how you view the world and live your life. Some are unconscious and inherited by your conditioning, and some you consciously chose. The more aware you are of what you believe, why you believe it, and the effects these beliefs have on your emotions and your body, the more choice you have to keep or change something.

Examples of inherited influences are your parents (obvious and most profound), your schooling, religion, culture, and organizations for which you work. Mental thought patterns effect how you feel. Thoughts and emotions manifest in your body. Positive thoughts show up with ease of movement and more energy to live your life. Negative thoughts show up as undesired tension, illness, injury or disease. The word disease literally means dis-ease. You are not at ease with something. There is stress or tension in your body in a such a way that it creates secondary effects that your body tries to heal. The body will naturally strive toward equilibrium.

Ease or disease can start with a thought which then evokes an emotion which then creates a physical manifestation. It sounds linear and clear and clean but there may be back and forthing and overlap between these domains – mental, emotional, physical. The totality of these domains working synergistically create a vitality of spirit or strong electromagnetic field.

In this clip, Tony Robbins is able to help Kamilla become aware of the rules she has for her emotions and other people, and the negative impact it has on her life. He facilitates her awareness and shifts her energy. This is similar to the work I do with my clients in helping them identify, shift and release patterns in life or at work that are not serving them to enable greater productivity, satisfaction or joy.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

A Leader’s Job: Holding Anxiety While Making Wise Decisions

President Obama’s Commentary on Syrian Refugee Crisis

I have always considered myself to be a-political, but I am also someone who fights for causes I believe in. Regardless of where you stand on Obama’s position, or the situation in the Middle East and Paris, here is what struck me about this clip:

The job of a leader is to hold and transform the anxiety that’s coming at them from all directions: from the people they lead and those they don’t lead, but who are watching closely.

The energy of anxiety is really about fear of the future. No one can predict the future accurately 100% of the time – not even those who claim to be psychic. A leader assesses the situation and makes his best decision based upon the information he has in that moment. He never has all the information he wants. Given the volatility and magnitude of suffering in the world, a lot can change in a day, an hour, a minute.

During much of Obama’s challenging tenure, I have found his approach to be inspiring. While I don’t always agree with where he lands, I do find that he tries to view complex situations from many angles, using logic and usually keeping a measured, calm exterior. These are attributes you expect in a Chief Executive.

My intent is not to get into a political discussion, but to provoke self-reflection – think about areas where you lead people in your life – your family, your organization or your community. It’s easy to lead when things are going well. The true test of leadership is in the most challenging of times. People gladly try to push their own anxiety onto others because it is so uncomfortable. And it’s easy to be critical of a leader when you aren’t the one leading a very tense, difficult situation.

When your own anxiety is high, it can be near impossible to be in a wise, open, creative space, so self-management is key. How do you hold and manage your own stress and that of others? What do you do to manage your anxiety when the pressure is on? What do you do to reduce other people’s anxiety, while giving them faith and hope in your proposed direction?

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Conditioning, Commitment & The Negative Mind

While I have been writing in this blog twice a week for a couple months now, for the next 30 days (December 17th), I am challenging myself to write a post every day.

When I first committed to this, my negative mind kicked-in reeling with messages: oh no! What will I write about? How will I get my other work done? Can I really do this? What if I don’t do this – or miss some days? I’ll figure it out. I’ll work it out. Yes. Life will go on.

Our negative mind serves us well in that it is our more primitive brain, wired for survival. It’s designed to protect us from harm or death. It worked well when we were hunting in the jungle. While life in the workplace may feel like a jungle at times, rarely are we in physical harm. Although psychological or emotional harm can happen, often it is imagined.

I not only committed to do this to myself, but also to a blogger community – and now you. Full disclosure. So I will! I’m up against the conditioning of a thought pattern I am working with – What is enough?

Once I made, what I perceive to be, a huge commitment, I stopped breathing and asked myself – do I really want to do this? What value will this bring? For my audience – I aspire to provocative thought, insight and practical tips on leadership, wellness and self management – better managing your own energy for optimal outcomes. For myself – strengthen my writing, creativity and resourcefulness muscles.

I hope you will accompany me on this journey. What is enough? Bring it on! One thing I know for sure – one post a day is more than enough for me.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: Part 2 of 3 – One Thought Experiment: Analyzing Your Conditioning

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax.

Where can you find the magic at work today?

Last week I asked you to notice your repetitive thought patterns. This raises your awareness, without judgment, about the thoughts that underlie your behavior.

I took it a step further and noted my thought pattern of “the enoughs” (be enough, have enough, do enough) wasn’t helpful. In this instance, when you identify a pattern that is not helpful or affirming, I recommend shifting it. The next step in shifting it is to understand the roots and the extensions of this thought.

The roots: Where does your thought pattern come from?

Most of the time, our thoughts are conditioned into us from external sources that are always sending us messages about how to think or behave, what’s acceptable, what we should want, etc. Often this conditioning hits us at an unconscious level. There are layers to this conditioning. Sources could be your parents, your family, the environment you grew up in, the culture you grew up in or currently live in, your schooling, your religion, the company or organization you work for, the media and so on.

The extensions: What memories or associations do you have with this thought? A thought evokes further thoughts or judgments or emotions. You could think the thought is a good or bad one. The thought might makes you happy, energized, angry or sad.

This week’s reflection: Explore and understand the thought pattern you noticed last week more deeply by analyzing you conditioning – where it originated from, and noting what subsequent thoughts or feelings emerge from holding this thought. Is this thought pattern helpful to you or not?

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Follow up Friday: Noticing is Hard!!

On Monday, I asked you to JUST NOTICE. NOTHING ELSE!

Nothing to do or not do.

Just notice your thoughts.

How hard is this and not do anything about them?

How hard is this – and then to manage the emotions that surface as a result of these thoughts?

Hard.

Which is why we often would rather “dumb down.”
Aka Not pay attention.

When we pay attention, we notice things that may be hard …

Or we don’t like…
Or we want to change…
Or, etc.

Thoughts can bring up anxiety, fears and all sorts of emotions and judgments.

For me, I noticed I still have some residual of a thought pattern I have been working on for a while now. Sometimes these patterns can clear completely and sometimes they linger and are part of an enduring life lesson.

For me the recurring theme of thoughts had the word “enough” in it…. Be enough, have enough, do enough, earn enough, have enough stuff, etc… It was all about needing more of something. Wow, that can be exausting – to have it constantly running in the foreground or background of my mind. At some level, always nagging me.

Guess what I learned? I’m not alone! I have company with family, friends and clients who are also playing this broken record.

Time to shift it!

On Monday we’ll talk about the next step in creating a shift…

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: Part 1 of 3 – One Thought Experiment: Noticing

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax.

Where can you find the magic at work today?

One of the most significant things I’ve learned is: 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. We keep telling ourselves the same thing over and over and over again. This one thought, or pattern of thinking, is always working on us – either in the foreground or background of our mind – consciously or unconsciously. This thinking pattern creates our world – always moving us toward what it is we keep telling ourselves.

I’m a yoga and meditation teacher. This is not my day job but a part-time vocation that supports me and my work as a leadership and success coach. The tools enable me to live a more empowered life by giving me more clarity, focus and peace everyday. Once I experienced such benefits myself, I felt called to teach others. So, teaching was not a goal I set out to accomplish. It emerged and evolved from my own painful journey of learning how to define and achieve success on my terms, not necessarily how society defines it.

My invitation to you is to work with this concept that your mind is largely ruled by this one thought, or a pattern of thinking, that is either serving you in where you want to go – or not. This is a three-week journey we are embarking upon – a little experiment to make headway in managing your mind to work more effectively for you.

This week’s assignment is to JUST NOTICE. Just notice what the thought or thought pattern is. When your boss comes gives you a new assignment…when your spouse throws a surprise at you…when you are confronted with a challenge at home or at work…When you have nothing in particular going on, where does your mind go?

Just NOTICE, nothing else. You may want to keep a notepad or journal with you to take notes. At first, you may not notice a pattern – but keep tracking and I’ll follow up and check-in Friday.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Follow up Friday: Being Liked Or Respected – Can You Be Both?

This week’s question: What conditioning supports or impedes you in accomplishing what you want?

Here’s is what I noticed with one of my clients who is struggling with her leadership team. She really wants to be like, and for people to love working for her. She feels her leadership team is holding her back by not being proactive and not doing what they say they will do. So, this week we explored the difference between being nurturing and holding people accountable.

She said she didn’t have any female role models who could do both – women are either too nurturing and pushovers or too firm and called b—hes for being assertive. What does this story have to do with conditioning? Everything! We have a cultural, collective conditioning around gender stereotypes.

Why is it not okay for a woman leader to be both nurturing and assertive in holding people accountable? How can women do this? Of course this applies to men also – stereotypically men are more comfortable in holding people accountable than being nurturing.

Keeping either men or women stuck in one of these ways of being is not helpful. We need both men and women leaders to exercise both characteristics – nurture and develop their people – but also be firm and hold them accountable when they haven’t done something that they need to do or the way in which they need to do it.

Another way to explore these two polarities is to wrestle with the question how can you be liked and also be respected for making tough decisions?

In the case of my client, She is making progress on her pattern of not acting on what she knows she needs to do. Do you have a pattern of behaving that is getting in the way of your success? Do you need help replacing it with a more effective pattern? If so, I’d love to hear from you and see how I can help.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: What’s Conditioning Go To Do With It?

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax.

Where can you find the magic at work?

Last week we talked about how terror makes you acutely aware of your gap: how far you are from where you want to be. Today I am asking you to analyze how your conditioning supports or impedes your ability to close that gap. The belief that you can or can’t do something is a huge factor in your success.

I always told my daughter she was smart and creative and if she worked hard enough, she could do or be anything she set her mind to. When she was 7 or 8 years old, she was trying to unfasten the bolt on the handlebars on her bicycle so we could raise it. It was really stuck. She began grunting and groaning trying with all her might to loosen it. I tried and realized it was stronger than both of us. She pulled the bike back from me. I asked her to let my friend, Dan, try as the bolt was really stuck.

She wouldn’t let go of the bike. I said, “It’s too hard. Let him do it.”

She screamed in agonizing frustration, “NOOOO!!!! I can do it!!! You always told me I could do anything!”

Stopped in my tracks, my mind raced. She was resilient and strong-willed – a good thing. How do I help her understand when to persevere against all odds, when to accept help and when to accept the limitations of her ability in an empowered way? Big questions for a young girl and even bigger questions that we live with as adults.

My daughter is now a freshwoman at a highly competitive college, so clearly she got past the defeat of the bicycle. Since, she and I have had dozens of conversations about navigating what I call the discernment space: how to know when you need to push forward – work harder, smarter or be more disciplined – and when you need to let go and accept help or give up and realize your limitations and cull the learnings to move forward differently.

This week’s reflection question: What conditioning supports or impedes you in accomplishing what you want?

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.