Your self-talk is hugely important. Your brain believes what you consistently tell it. In almost all cases, your brain believes you more than it believes anybody else. For example, in the beginning of many executive client engagements, my client had been telling themselves what they are not, rather than what they desired to be! “I’m not good at time management”, “I’m not good at speeches and presentations”, I’m not a good networker”. First of all, you are not as bad as you te

It’s hard to stay positive in the midst of a toxic environment, but do it for your own healthy thinking and effectiveness. Here are 10 ways: 1. Take control of the way you respond to situations. Always respond. Don’t react. 2. Proceed forward in ways you will be productive. Not being productive produces negative thoughts. 3. Resist the urge to be critical. 4. When faced with a choice in criticism or praise. Choose praise. 5. Flood your mind with positive messages. Read and li

If you’ve been to any of my live seminars or speeches, you know I post that everything begins with a thought or feeling. Thoughts and feelings then typically get transferred into language we use to communicate what we are thinking or feeling and then the next step is some sort of action. Sometimes, we spend a long time thinking and feeling something before communicating it and other times, it is mere microseconds. It works the same way with action, some people have an action

Over the course of around 56 BC to 51 BC, Julius Caesar led a massive invasion of Gail conquering the Gallic tribes. Over the course of this campaign, it is said that Caesar’s army had fought against three million men, killed one million and enslaving one million. They brought in subject to Rome 300 tribes and destroyed 800 cities. In the DISC model we use, the D stands for dominant behavior. In this pure behavior, people have a need to direct and if they have a job that lose

Here are two traits you can work on immediately to accelerate your leadership development and influence. 1. Talk less, listen more Leaders often get promoted because they are great talkers. They articulate and express themselves well. While it’s good at being able to transmit the language well to others, it’s equally if not more important to receive well. In today’s fast-paced, change-oriented environment, you may be telling yourself you don’t have time to listen. It’s possib

The way we see and think about people is often the difference between manipulating them and empowering them. If we don’t want to help people but we want them to help us, we are headed for troubled times. Manipulation occurs when we try to use them for our personal gain and advantage. Empowerment happens when we value them, and we try to help them for mutual advantage. When we choose the empowerment and value path, we both win. Ask yourself: how do you see people? Are they pot

There’s no such thing as a personality test. For one thing, you cannot measure someone’s personality, so there can be no “test” for it. For another, people think certain behavioral results are carrots and the “test” is a stick. In other words, if they don’t get the desirable results or as they say “pass”, then there’s trouble ahead. This creates a lot of anxiety around taking an assessment. That’s why it’s not a test. It’s an assessment. There’s no pass or fail. It’s not a st

I’ve been traveling the last two months with Ann Marie. Two weeks in Arizona, one week in January and one week in February, then one week this past week in Florida. In the middle of checking out, making sure we have everything and rushing to the airport, Ann Marie does two things i greatly admire. Ann Marie leaves notes and tips. She is the consummate appreciative individual for what people do for a living. Hotel people work laboriously hard every single day. No matter if the

It’s almost impossible to take an intense emotion and detinsiify it. It’s like driving a car at 100 mph and then trying to come to a complete stop. It’s somewhat easier to swerve that car in a slightly different direction. You have to re-position or re-direct the intense emotion. If you try to shut it off, you will encounter resistance and possible even more intense emotion. One tactic an angry person will use is control. Almost all anger is a desperate attempt to gain contro

What good does it do to continually beat yourself up? There is no person on the planet who has not screwed something up. We all have. There is no person who has not made wrong turn, said the wrong thing, made someone feel like crap. We all have. There is no person who has not made the wrong decision, picked the wrong person or blamed the wrong person. At some point, though, to productively move on with your life and career in a healthy way, you have to forgive yourself. Give

In my sessions with executives, a big subject we discuss is creating and maintaining trust. You can’t create trust without meaningful and deeper conversations with people. One executive told me his observation of sone of their off-site meetings in the past. They have had drinks and cigars after the meeting. He said, “that’s when the REAL conversations about the company start!” Why is that? Because people relax and loosen up. They get more comfortable. They open up more. As le

Some folks just like to hear themselves talk. Other people don’t have that much awareness about it. They are not even aware they are talking too much. Or using too many words. They have lost track of themselves. Their filter is turned off. They overshare. When you notice you are talking too much, you ask yourself: WHY AM I TALKING? The acronym also spells WAIT. It’s an amazing E.Q. tactic to use on yourself if you can master the awareness of your communication. This will catc

In ourselves, we act out our lives automatically by our core values and beliefs, whether we have articulated them or not. Superior performers do articulate them, document them and keep them in front of themselves all the time. This keep the behaviors consistent in the midst of pressures or decisions that arise. Companies should do the same thing. Keeping the Core Values or Principles top of mind and visible help to keep our organizational behavior consistent in all situations

Every waking second we are alive, an avalanche of data pours in through our physical senses. We process this deluge of data with our brains and it is constantly sifting and sorting this information, trying to select and sort the critical information from the casual. Nothing is more critical to our brains than survival. The first filter most of the incoming information encounters in our brains is the amygdala. The amygdala is an almond shaped sliver of the temporal lobe respon

Take two hours of your daily life and re-engineer them. How to do this process: 1. Exercise for 30 minutes 2. Read something relevant to your craft or to improve yourself for 30 minutes 3. Volunteer for something that moves you for 30 minutes 4. Spend 15 minutes with someone you absolutely love being around 5. Spend 15 minutes journaling Try this formula for four weeks and let me know how it works for you. #PersonalDevelopment #TalentDevelopment #Behavior #ChangeLeadershi

Blockbuster used to exist because VHS tapes used to cost over 100 dollars. Netflix now exists because they eliminated having to take the product back. Now it’s evolved for the customer to get immediate product without having to go get it or take it back. Redbox still exists because not enough customers have advanced to the technology of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. But they will. The reason your computer keyboard is arranged as it is is because original typewriters used to

Have you ever stopped to consider why we have piles on our desks? Sometimes we have piles on our shelves and even our floors? Why is this? It’s because we don’t make effective, quality decisions about this stuff. The decision we make is to deal with it later, but this is not an effective quality decision. Why? Because we will have to deal with it at some point anyway! We put stuff on the back burner we plan on getting back to, instead of doing it now. This is really not decis

The reason leaders are so important and powerful in organizations is because we all take our cues from someone else, usually those in charge. Research indicates that 30%-40% of organizational outcomes are effected by the culture of that organization and leaders can effect up to 20%-30% of the organizational climate and culture. Why? Because we all take our cues from leaders or the people we believe are in charge. If an associate is afraid of telling a leader they are in the p

Any kind of growth has a pain that accompanies it. I just had shoulder surgery last Friday. I had a torn rotator cuff and a bone spur on my left shoulder removed. So now I am on the road to recovery. And…it hurts. It hurts because it is in the process of healing. Just as this is the case with my physical shoulder, we all hurt while we heal. We all hurt while we grow. As I am exercising my shoulder, it feels like it’s not supposed to bend or extend that way. The same thing is

What is average? If you listen to any media newscast or read any news article, you will notice they will more of than not communicate statistics in averages and percentages. Besides leading you to settling for less than you should, averages can be deceiving. For instance, would you attempt to walk across a river which is on average four feet deep? This river might be shallow for some stretches but it also might be 20 feet deep in the middle. Dealing in averages is a risky pro