Joy@Work Podcast - Proven Hack to Inspire Hope and See Good Days

Proven Hack to Inspire Hope and See Good Days

04/20/20 • 20 min

The Purpose To show you a way and give you the urge to inspire your kids, family and your work colleagues with a real and tangible hope that will lift their spirits and yours, and fill everyone with the urge to emerge stronger and ready to lead the world in the recovery so that you will see good days. The Process I'm going to share a powerful tool and neuroscience hack that you will easily use to bring absolute clarity to the future expectation of good you want to create and use to inspire others. The Payoff Your kids will want to do something creative, your family will look at you with newfound respect and admiration and your work colleagues will be eager and ready to listen, collaborate and be more productive. In times of difficulty or crisis, the trap for leaders is trying to control everything. And this applies as much to leading in your home as it does in the office. When your locus of control is hindered or even removed, when you feel even slightly that your own life is out of your control, your threat response fires up. Our favourite almond-shaped friends inside our brain, the amygdalae, take up the reins of your response with plenty of stress hormone production of cortisol and adrenaline. It's a never ending barrage of negative news and many people scoff at the notion of remaining optimistic in light of these "facts". The human brain is programmed to narrow your focus in the face of a threat. It's an in-built mechanism designed perfectly for self-protection. It means that your field of vision is restricted to what is immediately in front of you. Perfect for hunters in the Serrengeti and your cave dwelling ancestors. Pretty useful in the 21st century office and home, but unseeable threats lurking in the very air before you... not quite so useful. Leaders, whether at work or at home, need to intentionally pull back and take a broader view. Leaders need to look up and see a new future. A new future that is good and positive and filled with promise. We call it hope. And we could all use some hope right now. What we want is some real hope. Real hope is the positive expectation of good. It's not just wishful or fanciful thinking. It is something you believe will come to pass. Like everyone else, you want to have this positive expectation of good and I know it is difficult. And we all would like someone to stimulate this hope within us. We want someone, anyone to fill us with the urge or ability to feel something hopeful, something positive to rescue us from this pit of negativity and confinement and restriction. You can probably think of a small handful of leaders who truly inspire you with hope of a brighter future. Martin Luther King was pretty inspiring with his "I have a dream" speech. Winston Churchill inspired a generation to give their lives for freedom promising to "fight them on the beaches". And just recently, Queen Elizabeth 2nd ralleyed hope for an end to Covid 19 with "We will meet again." But it seems, inspirational leaders are few and far between. Yet, there's one in your household. There's an inspirational leader in your workplace. There's one who can inspire hope and rally people in your community. And that person is you. Yes, you. You have all that you need to inspire hope in others and hence for yourself. You might not believe it just yet, but give me half an hour of your time and you will. Working from home ain't what it's all cracked up to be Well, I actually think that it is, but then I've been doing this for many years. But I do recall how tough it was at the beginning. And now it's much more difficult. Now, your partner is at home also (or perhaps worse, if they are in essential services and escape every day) kids are at home too, either from school or university and even they are finding their phone and netflix is getting less exciting. We're confined in space, and there's a limited number of spaces to work, and bandwidth is a premium. Young kids especially, expect yo

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Previous Episode

Winning The Battle In Your Soul Against Panic, Fear And Covid

Purpose: Sharing neuroscience hacks to help you win the battle in your soul during this time of lockdowns, social distancing and a strange lack of toilet paper. Payoff: You'll regain control to and be able to encourage others so we can all emerge better, stronger and ready to reinvigorate our lives and the world. Encourage We're 3 months into this virus spreading its fear and anxiety across the globe. Different people in different places are in various stages of grief. We all started in full denial and several went into isolation immediately. Information was scare as no-one accepted responsibility and no-one wanted to be accountable. Experts were dumbfounded - only this time they actually admitted that they were dumbfounded. Some closed borders, others said it was premature. Some stopped flights, others continue to this day. Some said it is airborne and we all need masks, others said it was droplets and we needed to wash our hands. That period seemed to last forever, some would suggest that there's a couple of world leaders still there, which rather helped many tip over into the anger phase. The promises of no shortages triggered the exact opposite effect - after all, no sensible person trusts a politician at the best of times, and suddenly they were talking about the worst of times, but everything else was carrying on as usual? Toilet paper was the first surprising victim. Now, everything is in diminished supply. Some leaders started bargaining with the virus only to discover that it didn't come to negotiate but to infiltrate. It came to spread and reproduce and take out the weaker members - which unsurprisingly led many back into anger. Self-isolation measures began to take root and social distancing was no longer about focusing only on your phones and choosing to ignore others, now we were encouraged to avoid others. Churches shut their doors, Mosques and temples too. The misery continued as depression kicked in. The massive deaths in Italy made us all question what was really happening. Holidays cancelled - many with little prospect of a refund and , naturally, the insurance companies would claim exceptional circumstances. Slowly acceptance of quarantine, isolation, stay at home, the lost holidays, the lost income, the lost job, and yes, the lost toilet paper. We're all grieving. Grieving for a life that was, just a few short weeks ago, looking so promising. A new decade was dawning and there was hope in the very air. Well now the air is clean and clear. At least until China's factories ramp up to full production and poison our scarred lungs. Hope has faded for many, a few hold on tightly to the promises of God, who is, by the way, still on His throne. If we haven't personally lost someone dear to us, why are we grieving? We're grieving the loss of agency and control. Develop The little girl coughed as we descended in the lift. A deep, dry and loud cough. She didn't cover her mouth. I flinched. It was instinctual, my heart rate shot up and my body and brain flooded with adrenaline. I stopped breathing. I left the lift as the doors opened and realised I had stopped breathing. The fresh sun-soaked air was my welcome refuge. Humans everywhere are deeply concerned for their safety. We cannot not be. It's the Critter part of our brain. The part that houses and runs our emotions. A place where chemistry rules the roost and floods our brains and blood stream with chemical messengers to be afraid, to be very very afraid. Don't know what it is? Be afraid. Don't know what to do? Be afraid. Don't know what's happening? Be afraid. And this isn't a conscious "knowing". We have no experience or memory that helps guide us on the better course of action. We can quickly be so overwhelmed with emotions of fear and anxiety that we forget all else and forget to engage our thinking mind. It is going to help you to better understand how our body and soul - our mind, will and emotions operate and thus we feel as though we have no agency or contr

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Next Episode

The Power of the First Step

Have you ever wondered why change is so tough? Why is it, that with our very best intentions, we still find it difficult to make changes that we know would be good for us? Why is it so much more difficult to get other people to change and do the things that matter? Even when you have a crystal clear picture of what success looks like and you have tapped into the emotions, drives and values that motivate and there's still no action!!!!! How do you get started? You need the Power of the First Step. see the SWING exercise in my last episode if you don't have a clear picture of what success looks like. The Purpose You'll learn how to make change happen for yourself or for the people you lead. The Process The Power of the First Step is a purposeful leadership technique to create momentum. And just like any journey, we'll define your future desired end state and your current situation and using the most useful one of three variations of this technique that works for you, you will create momentum on your change journey. The Payoff You'll wake up in the morning and your problem is solved, or it is on its way to being solved. Way back in 1995, John P. Kotter shared: why change efforts fail in organisations. He talked about 8 distinct errors that prevent success from happening. But that was ages ago, surely we have learned and moved forward since the mid 90's? It seems not. 10 Reasons change efforts fail as described by Lee Colan in 2014. In 2017, Brent Gleeson posited that the 1 reason most change efforts fail is battle fatigue. Bill Pasmore at CCL highlights 4 reasons why you fail at change in 2016 If you have ever failed to change, you'll know all the reasons (aka excuses) why you failed. And that's perfectly OK. Unless you actually do want to change. The common factor through so much research is inertia. That is, the desire to stay the same. i.e. the desire to not change. Even if and when we are completely certain that change would result in a better situation for us. A situation we want. The truth is, we want the success without the pain. After 30 plus years of coaching and training leaders to change, I help my clients overcome their own inertia through the Power of the First Step. You can use this to get your own change started, or use it with your team to get them to start on their change journey. Often, during coaching, a client can understand and describe their future goal or outcome. They can describe their current situation. But, they struggle to know exactly what they need to do now. Sometimes, a client cannot "see" what they need to do. Others, state that they do not "know" what to do. What we are doing is scripting and directing the critical moves. to change you need a director - you be the director of your own movie There are three variations of this technique. I recommend that you start using the visual template (using pictures). If this is not working well, use the digital template (using a descriptive process). Or, you can ‘act’ this out. Imagine that you are the writer and director of a movie and you're creating a movie storyboard. Commence with the “Future” situation - the very last scene of the movie (this is a Hollywood movie with a happy ending by the way, not some Filme Noire or Pathe real life drama). This is what success looks like, and for aa detailed review on that, check out the SWING process I shared in an earlier episode here. The "Present" situation is the current situation - as with the "Future", you want specific sensory information about it. In this technique, you are creating a movie storyboard or script of the change you want from the movie’s very first scene (now) to the last scene (the future goal or outcome). You (and/or your team) is in the starring role, you are the central character of this movie. And, procrastination is the villain you are going to vanquish. The first step is the very first ‘action’ that this character takes in

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach