Focus Friday: What to Do When You’ve Plateaued.

Tony Robbins gives great advice if you’ve hit a plateau, are in a rut, or too comfortable. You need something to get your mind and body going again.

• Read Something Inspirational.
• Engage in Intense Physical Activity.
• Be Crystal Clear on Goals & Learn from Great Role Models.
• Give Service.

This is all great advice. People can support you but ultimately it is up to you to make things happen and change your life. Getting inspired opens up your mind. Exercising energizes your body. Getting clear and seeing someone else do what you want creates a clear pathway. Giving service helps put things in perspective and generates good will.

Reflection question: What is one thing you can do today to shift your life?

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All rights Reserved.

Focus Friday: The Empathic Leader and Self Care

There is a lot written in recent years about the need for a leader to demonstrate empathy when creating a safe, high performing culture for their constituents. When I refer to an empathic leader, I am not referring to someone who can demonstrate empathy. I am referring to someone in a leadership role who is considered a highly sensitive person – an empath. This is someone who feels what others feels and may often feel overwhelmed by this sensitivity and the environments in which they find themselves. Maybe they have been accused of being too emotional. For more information, you can refer to the work of Judith Orloff, MD, who has written a lot about this way of being.

Often people who are empaths shy away from leadership positions because, if they don’t have solid daily practices, exercising self care to manage this way being, they can be easily overwhelmed. Here is how it can show up: You are constantly stressed or overwhelmed. You are stressed by the deadlines and workload. You absorb and are stressed by what your employees feel consequently your employees feel that from you. It doesn’t matter what you say. They experience what you embody – your emotions and the energy vibe you give off. All the way around it creates a chaotic and unpleasant environment for you and for them.

The good news about being an empath is that you are aware (sometimes painfully so) of how everyone feels. The bad news is, you may take it all on and not filter it or distance yourself from it. When employees are stressed they want two things: the sense that their leader gets them and cares, and wants to, and can fix it for them – create calm or remove the stuff (people, deadlines, projects) that are stressing them out.

But you can’t give away what you don’t have. You can’t create calm if you don’t have calm. It generates from within you. For the Empathic leader the greatest thing you can do is, as the famous analogy states – put the oxygen mask on yourself! First, notice when you are feeling really stressed. Notice the source from which this stress is coming. Exercise extreme self care by mentally and emotionally, and sometimes physically distancing yourself from those employees who are negative. Sometimes you may be sitting in a meeting and it is just your mental or emotional orientation you shift if you need to still interface with them.

Then there is the single more important thing you can do to keep yourself grounded, or to re-ground yourself if you are feeling stressed: Have some kind of daily practice that keeps you centered within yourself. This could be: running, walking, meditating, doing yoga, journaling, talking to a trusted colleague over morning coffee, driving, swimming, prayers, affirmations, etc. It could also be an activity, practice, person or some sort of support group you tap into.

Whatever your “thing” is, do it for at least 20 minutes religiously everyday. This will give a certain baseline from which to navigate from. When you are really stressed, do another 20 minutes and another, etc. A leader’s job, like a parent, is the hardest one as people look to you for support, vision and help, especially when they are stressed.

At Sage Leadership Strategies, this is what we do well – hold the space for leaders to understand their patterns and enhance their approach for greater impact. If you know you can get better results with your constituents but just need some additional support to gain clarity and sort things out, please call us for a complimentary discovery session: 203-730-2103.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All rights Reserved.

Focus Friday: How Do You Maintain Your Leadership Filter?

First, what IS a leadership filter?

It’s how you personally filter and process information so you are passing on the right content and tone of your message to your constituents. Are you passing on stress, confusion, or clarity?
I had several conversations with clients this week about this very point. When you are on your email late at night mulling over some upset – do you fire off emails to your team or do you sit with it, filter and digest the issue? It’s about responding versus reacting.

When you react, you are being triggered by something and may come across emotional – tense or stressed. When you respond, you have paused and thought through multiple scenarios and carefully crafted your point of view or request.

A filter is not necessarily about how intelligent you are. It’s mostly about how you are managing your stress and triggers. Are you throwing up your “stuff” on everyone or communicating in a clear way? The first is charged and has a lot of negativity in it. Everyone is triggered by something. The more triggered you are, the more likely it is related to something that was either a traumatic or upsetting event that happened in the past and is no longer relevant, or a worry or anxiety you have about the future. In most instances a strong trigger is related to something that happened when you were a child and felt helpless. Your brain doesn’t always realize you are an independent, strong adult now and it can regress and act from that place.

The more time and workload pressure you are under, the more susceptible you are to throwing stuff to others unfiltered. I call this acting in your back-up style. This is where you literally want to make sure you breathe, pause and compose. By the very nature of it you may not be able to. This is where your amygdala gets “hijacked” The amygdala is a structure located in the temporal lobes of the limbic brain and has the role of memory, decision-making, and emotional reactions. When it gets triggered, I use the word “hijacked” because that is what looks it like – someone took your rational brain and your emotions are off and running.

What is the danger of this behavior? You are expressing (usually) negative emotions and passing the buck by generating stress for your constituents – direct reports, peers, maybe even boss – versus filtering and tempering the message and emotions so it can be received better. In other words, your reaction starts a chain of reactions or escalates things. When you filter, you also shape the message in ways that your constituents can either best digest it or act upon it. It’s not just a “pass through” of information.

So, a filter is not just editing what you say but how you say it. The tone is the most important thing people usually react to. Make sure it is music (a clear, less-charged request) and not noise (panic).
Reflection question: How do you manage your emotions when the stakes are high and the pressure is on?

At Sage Leadership Strategies, this is what we do well – hold the space for leaders to understand their patterns and enhance their approach for greater impact. If you know you can get better results with your constituents but just need some additional support to sort things through, please call us for a complimentary discovery session: 203-730-2103.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All rights Reserved.

Focus Friday: Setting Your Day With Daily Rituals to Support Your Success

It has often been cited that successful people have daily rituals that they practice first thing in the morning that supports them in accomplishing their goals.

If you don’t have a daily ritual, I encourage you to discover one. If you do, I encourage you to revisit what you do and why you do it. Why? To make sure you are setting the right tone to your day – in terms of attitude, mindset and content. When I don’t practice my daily ritual first thing in the morning, my day is usually off. I am not at the top of my game.

Here is my daily ritual: Once I am aware I am awake, I practice alternate nostril breathing while lying in bed. This rebalances my brain. I get up, wash my face, brush my teeth and take a quick shower and have a glass of warm water with lemon. I then go into my home office and sit on the floor. I write in a journal listing all the people and things I am grateful for in my life and then do my Kundalini yoga and meditation practice.

If I wake up late or have an early meeting and can’t get my full practice in (45-75 minutes), I will do at least a 15 minute warm up and the rest later. It is a non-negotiable for me to do everyday. When I don’t do it first thing, it doesn’t set my day the same way.

Since there is often a lot that is uncertain or unresolved in my business, my practice helps me lower my anxiety. I will often open a couple of emails that are daily inspirational videos or quotes to give me a lift. I then go to my calendar and to do list I drafted the night before to determine where I start my workday.

I will admit there are days where I check my email on my phone while lying in bed or just before I wash my face. (I do not keep my phone by my bed but in the bathroom behind a closed door so I have to get up and get it). What happens when I do this? I am setting my day in a reaction versus proactive mode. It is enticing to be in this mode. It really requires discipline to not peak at all those emails. Some are junk and some are urgent but not important. In any case, it does not put me in the drivers seat for my day so I am working on eliminating doing this at all until I have finished my practice. But it can be so enticing!

What are positive ways you set your day? Where are you vulnerable to jumping in, in reaction mode before breakfast?

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All rights Reserved.

Focus Friday: The Journey from Trauma to Nurturance – Dentists Who Lead In Creating a Nurturing Environment

Dentistry, leadership and nurturing environment. Do all these words really go together in one thought? I don’t know anyone, other than my daughter, who loves going to the dentist. Most people hate going, perhaps because they fear needles, pain, the drill sound or just the unknown.

I myself had a really bad experience about eight years ago. The dentist I had been going to retired, and someone bought his practice. At that time, I had been going to the practice for probably about fifteen years so I stayed and went to “the new guy.” After one or two visits, he discovered a cavity, which I don’t recall having in the previous fifteen years. Here is where it gets hairy.

Ever since I was two years old, I have had an aversion to needles. I was hospitalized with pneumonia and had so many shots of penicillin that it created a hole in my skin and in my psyche. Since then I was terrified of needles. Today, although not pleasant, I can tolerate a poke in the arm. My mouth is a different situation – I’m a sensitive type and have a sensitive nervous system. Even though I practice yoga, and have strengthened it, it’s still sensitive.

But at this time, I had not yet developed a consistent yoga practice and when I went to “the new guy” to fill my cavity, here is what happened: He gave me a shot in my gums. I don’t remember being given a local anesthetic and I don’t remember feeling particularly numb after the injection. When he started to drill, it really hurt. I tried to bear it. Pain is a relative thing. How does one really, objectively know their tolerance for pain? I always say that, even though I am sensitive, I must have a fairly high level of tolerance since, after all, “I gave birth to my daughter without medication.” Shouldn’t that count for some kind of hero’s acknowledgement? It certainly wasn’t a cakewalk and required perseverance, stamina and a gritty will.

Back to the drill. After a while, it was so unbearable, and I felt so vulnerable – there with my mouth open and unable to speak – that I started to groan in agony. The dentist had many options at that point. Here is what he did: he said, “You can feel that?”
What did he think, I was groaning for jollies?
I said, “Yes, I can.”
“You can’t feel that. You shouldn’t be able to feel that.”
“Well I can.”

I don’t remember what happened after that – if he gave me another shot or not. What I do remember is I felt traumatized and shamed. It was a small office and when I walked out, I felt people, including the receptionist, looking at me since they could hear my groans. Was I a baby?

Here is what I did: I wrote a letter to the dentist about my experience – what it felt like for me in his chair. I encouraged him to think differently about how he practiced. I told him I was leaving the practice and I never went back. I sought a holistic dentist who replaced half of my mercury fillings (all paid for out of pocket!) without the trauma. I didn’t do anymore as it was costly and I didn’t want to upset more mercury in my mouth.

A year later, I asked around and had a friend refer me to a dental practice that was covered by my insurance. I have been going to this practice for seven years now. On my first visit, I told the dentist about my previous experience and what I was looking for. She listened and gave me all the time in the world. On subsequent visits, the hygienist does most of the work and the dentist comes in to check – and always with a smile and something upbeat to say. In this timeframe I have only had one small cavity until last week when I needed a crown. I have never had anything other than cavities so I was nervous over this procedure.

I am writing about this today because I had an extraordinary experience that shifted my previous trauma and sense of being taken care of. What happened in this practice is unbelievable.
On the day of my crown, I made it clear how sensitive and nervous I was and reminded the dentist of my traumatic incident. They walked me through in detail everything they were going to do. They handled this procedure so differently than that day eight years ago. First, they gave me a local gel anesthetic before putting a needle in my mouth. Then, they used an instrument, not their judgment, to gauge my level of pain.

After giving me a couple of shots of Novocain, they placed an instrument on my tooth, and had me place my hand on the instrument with the doctor’s so I was in control. I could pull it away when I started to feel it. The way my system works, I didn’t do that but raised a leg instead. The doctor got the message. This instrument had a measure and I had to get up to a score of 80 before they felt it was safe to start to drill. They were surprised, but not upset about how long it took. She kept giving me small dosed shots of Novocain, waiting and checking on my level of sensation. I lost track after six shots. Finally I was ready.

Before they started to drill the dental assistant suggested I could use my iPod. I put in my earplugs and they started to drill. The high pitch of the drill affected me. No problem. She gave me a heavy set of headphones. I turned up my yoga music, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. A couple of times I had a moment of sensation. They stopped. My eyes started to tear. I couldn’t help it. A couple of times I apologized for taking so long and being “such a project.” It also helped that I had my partner there who rubbed my feet during most of the procedure.

The reaction from the dentist and dental assistant was, “no need to apologize. You are just sensitive.” It wasn’t, “you are too sensitive.” It is what it is. They said, “This isn’t bad. There are people who are worse. You just have a hot tooth. It’s not happy. It’s okay.”

A procedure I was told would take ninety minutes took three hours. No complaints or attitude from anyone in the office – just understanding and patience. This was healing for me on so many levels. The entire atmosphere felt accepting and nurturing. I never thought I would use that word for a dentist, but I do. Even the staff in the office were so pleasant, helping me navigate the last month of my dental insurance.

I was so touched when I left that I hugged the dental assistant and the dentist. I now do not have the same sense of dread for future procedures. Because my nerves were tended to with care, I have a lot of nerve for next time.

I also reflected on all of my experiences with this office over time and decided that an office doesn’t just get this way by itself. This is an environment that is set and cultivated by the doctors – the dentists and leaders of the practice are the ones who set the tone. There is a pervasive sense of friendliness and that they are there for the patients and that they really care. Care is the operative word. It’s the water everyone is swimming in, and it’s infectious. I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All rights Reserved.