Flying: Learning a New Skill Keeps Your Brain Vibrant and Pliable

Yesterday for my (milestone!) birthday, my husband gave me an airplane flying lesson. I’ve wanted to learn since I was 17.

I had a one hour lesson with 30 minutes in the air. This occurred two days after Hurricane Irene yet it was amazing how calm, brilliant, blue and clear the sky was. I walked away with many insights related to life and work that I will be blogging about for the next week.

Within minutes of landing in the cockpit, I was on information overload: My instructor explained the takeoff checklist, the different dashboard tools, how to steer, keep the airplane nose and tips level, etc. I enjoyed the experience knowing HE ultimately had control of the vehicle so I didn’t have to retain everything. Whew – nothing like having a safety net! Like learning to ride a bike – this was as much a visceral as an intellectual experience. I had to steer with my feet. Talk about feeling uncoordinated! I needed to get in touch with my toes while my eyes made sure I was level with the horizon.

The only way that we continue to grow is to put ourselves in situations that are stretching or foreign. If life doesn’t present us with challenging experiences then it is up to us to actively seek them out. This is how we grow beyond what we know and can do. Otherwise, we replicate the same experiences which breeds complacency and ultimately, atrophy of body or mind.

Do you want to be renewed or get a fresh perspective on your career, relationship or work project? Take on learning something new, however small. You’ll be amazed at what else you’ll learn as it keeps you young by creating new brain cells which gives you access to new insights and actions.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Savoring The Incremental Creates Sustained Behavior Change

Deep insight, intensive workshops, breakthrough coaching sessions, a cataclysmic life event… these all are catalysts for change. These are the events that many wanting change seek.

We can come off these events with a high, with a great uplift in our motivation or a low searching for meaning, answers.
THEN, reality sets in and the heavy lifting of integrating these events – emotional and mental shifts and behavior change – into our daily living sets in.

This is where I see the need for an uncommon practice to take root: realistic optimism. How do you stay optimistic and steady with your practice of behavior change despite what you know, despite how hard it may be, despite the lack of support you may face in your environment? How do you keep the faith and believe you can do it? How do you acknowledge the incremental, daily changes you do make?

Regardless of what others say, savor what you know to be true. Savor your improvements. These are the roots that grow great fruit.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Where is Leadership in Healthcare?

It rests not just in legislation but with how providers choose to behave in their day-day patient interactions. Thomas Dahlborg has a great blog that reflects on putting “care” back into health care and that this is what doctor’s promise when they take their oath.

This week, I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon on a benign biopsy. In a cost-conscious, productivity-minded system, I experienced my doctor as a humble, accountable human.

My appointment last week was cancelled last minute because he had emergency surgery. I rescheduled this week and his office called me the morning of my appointment – they had a cancellation, did I want to come in earlier? I said yes.

After sitting in the waiting and then patient room for 50 minutes, I still hadn’t seen the doctor. My time is valuable and sitting around during a weekday is money spent for me. I poked my head out of the room to see if he was in sight. As I opened the door, the doctor came in. I shared my experience: “I’m flexible but this is enough waiting.” He immediately said, “I’m sorry. I take full responsibility.”

Wow. This stopped me in my tracks. How refreshing. He then took his time to explain everything to me in language I could understand. He was not arrogant, curt, or harried. He was slow, focused, deliberate and present with me. I was a real human in front of him. He spent whatever time I needed to answer my questions.

This is all we ask of our healthcare providers: To remember that they are treating a whole person who has an ailment, not an ailment attached to a person. My doctor demonstrated empathy, care and compassion – an often low-leveraged human technology that shifts one’s experience. His behavior may have been helped by the fact that he was just back from his own medical leave after having surgery. Perhaps he could more easily walk in my shoes.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Leading Through Information Overload

This requires Downtime, Discipline, Rewiring your Brain.

I went away in January by myself on a caribbean retreat. I was offline, completely disconnected for two weeks. I had coverage at home and work – worry-free! I did a lot of thinking, writing and walking on the beach. Ah – no more noise! My system calmed down and I found my own voice again. It was heaven.

This was a stark contrast to what I experienced upon “re-entry” back into the atmosphere of 21st century constant availability. I came back to a snow crisis, client needs and a backlog of emails. I tried to do too much, too quickly. I got sick. This slowed me down. It helped me see that I need to be more disciplined in saying “no,” deferring or delegating. I continued my meditation practice.

McKinsey’s article Recovering From Information Overload offers some additional strategies.

If you’re already overloaded, here are the key points – information overload makes us anxious and we need to focus, filter and forget.

Easier said than done!

The “need” to be connected constantly is an addiction – we get hooked into fear – of missing something, not being current, etc. We can rewire ourselves for greater capacity and reduced reactivity which allows us to be more selective, proactive, clearer thinking.

My (edited) McKinsey comments:
Changing this behavior comes down to better self-management.

1. Understand and manage your own motives,
2. Enforce team norms for support – initially this may require outside support,
3. Rewire different neural pathways in the brain to not be reactive.

We give our clients concrete tools to calm down the mind and rewire the brain for response versus reaction. When one leads by shifting their energy, it impacts everyone around them – their family, their team, department or organization.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

How Does A Caring Leader Consciously Manage Being Overwhelmed?

There is a time to lead and a time to follow.

The true calling of a conscious leader in these changing times is recognizing which is which.
The complexities, dependencies and crises of today call for leaders to carry a lot.

How much do you carry?
When you can’t carry, how do you know it?
When you can’t carry, what do you do?
When you can’t carry, how do you ask for help?

When you can carry, what do you do?
When you can carry more because you feel full and you need to release your talents and gifts, what do you do?
When you can carry, how do you ask – what can I do to help?
When you can carry, how do you make it okay for others who can’t carry?
When you can carry, how do you care for others who can’t carry?

When you are upset at others who can’t carry, how do you recognize yourself in them?
When you are upset at others who are carrying, how do you recognize yourself in them?
We may all – leaders and followers – have our time of being in both places.

The conscious leader discerns when, and in what context to lead or follow.
Care.
Care.
Care.
But do not neglect Self-care.
You must make it okay to leave and come back to this, otherwise you will not lead from a full cup.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Jan 06 Walk in Peanut Butter and Make Better Decisions

We are 6 days into the new year, and I don’t know about you, but the speed of change is picking up – the tension is palpable wherever I go. Even if changes are positive or desired, it can still feel like an unmanageable blast.

When it feels as if everything is, or needs to happen at once. What’s a leader to do?
Go slower.

Right.

2011 will be a year of transformational change – with things coming out of nowhere. With this kind of activity, it can feel like your head is spinning – multiple demands, uncertainty, going into unknown territory.

This is exactly when you want to take a deep breath and pretend someone has hit the slow speed button on your life movie. Or, as my brother says, imagine you are walking in peanut butter. This will give you a chance to hit the pause button to allow your brain to process what is happening to make better decisions.

When we live in a microwavable world, we think if we wait 10 minutes to respond to that email, text or phone call, we’ll miss that deal or be unacceptably behind on the to do list. It’s all an illusion and a matter of perspective. I chucked my microwave a long time ago and in those extra two minutes waiting for that water to boil, I’ve conjured up all sorts of great ideas.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Living a Strategic Life Means Resetting Yourself For a Different Year

“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things everyday” (By Lao Tzu).

Are you making a new year’s resolution or do you really want to set a different intention about how you live your life? The statistics with resolutions are not good. It’s over by January 15th typicallly. But a deeply-held personal intention with focus and action behind it, can be different.

We live in a culture that always wants more – more of ourselves, more from others, move “stuff.” The reality is, we are stuffed. I propose the focus be on what are you going to stop doing? What will you release, remove, let go of in your life – at home, at work, in your relationships?

For those local, come join me for an abundance meditation tomorrow, new year’s day at noon – and every month thereafter – the first Saturday of the month. The way to having an abundant life or business is to stop doing the things that no longer serve you and allowing, creating space for new things to emerge. Live in the white space.

2011 promises to be a year of transformation – let’s go with grace versus kicking and screaming. This is how to live a strategic life – one that harnesses your passion and integrates your experience to select – and deselect – the wise choices. Happy Different Year!

For more details, check here.

© Copyright 2010 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com