[This post is part of a series on internal objections and blocks and how to overcome them. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Whether you want to lead or motivate others or yourself, deciding to lead means you will face objections and blocks. Whether from members of your team[…] Keep reading →

Is there anything you do that wouldn’t benefit from having more confidence? Even if showing confidence doesn’t make a difference, at least having the option to show it helps. Have you noticed that people with more confidence can’t do that much more than people without it? They can’t lift heavier weights or solve more difficult problems. The guy at the gym who lifts the heaviest weights probably isn’t the most[…] Keep reading →

The past few posts talked about using self-talk to lead yourself. Today I’ll mention a few things about leading others by influencing their self-talk. To me, influencing someone’s self-talk feels easier than changing their beliefs, but the effect is roughly the same. Trying to change other people’s beliefs sounds hard, especially if you can’t change your own beliefs. It’s easier when you realize some simple things about how others have[…] Keep reading →

Knowing your self-talk lets you change how you perceive and influence your world more than almost anything. That knowledge helps you understand and influence how your team members, peers, bosses, and so on perceive their worlds. It’s a powerful lever. Your beliefs affect how you perceive your world. Everything you observe gets filtered through your beliefs. If you think Bob is a jerk, you will filter everything you see about[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday I posted a short passage of self-talk you might have come up with yourself doing the self-talk exercises I recommend as two of the best exercises I know to raise your self-awareness (exercise 1: write your self-talk; exercise 2: voice your self-talk). Let’s do another, this time in the context of walking into a crowded room in a social situation. First, have you noticed what people do when they[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before about the value of raising awareness of your self-talk and two exercises to raise it. The first is to write out your self-talk. The second, and harder, is to voice it. I still consider the first — writing your self-talk a few times a day every day for a week — one of the best, if not the best, self-awareness raising exercises I know of. I start[…] Keep reading →

I’m sure I’ll continue it with other thoughts soon, but for now I’m wrapping up the series on highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students with a review of the major point from it, particularly on 360-degree feedback reports. First, I commend Columbia for offering coaching to all MBA candidates. When I went there we got the reports and reviewed them overall in class but didn’t get personalized coaching. Giving[…] Keep reading →