Just for Today - Focus on the Positive!

In 2019, I decided to host my first leadership event at a local community college called Live2Lead North Jersey. This was scary to say the least, at the same time it was a very exciting opportunity for me as I was ready to take calculated risks to build credibility in my community as a Leadership Coach. I got a call from the newspaper reporter a day before the event asking if she could be in the room.

I said "YES, Of course!"

Honestly I did not think much about it and did not expect the reporter to actually show up. Shaylah Brown, reporter of North Jersey newspaper was one of the first persons in the room and the last one to leave! I knew that I was surrounded by Big Picture Thinkers since I was very intentional about who I invited to be on the Panel Discussion during the Afternoon Session of the Live2Lead 2019 event.

I had studied the 11 Thinking Skills from my mentor and I was applying the lessons I was learning... Learn a little, Do a little!

I was completely taken by surprise when a friend of mine messaged me about 2 weeks later and informed me that my event was published in the local newspaper (multiple editions) and here you can see a clipping from the article that got published.

How did this happen in such a short period of time? I had just got started as a Leadership Coach, it was because I got started on my personal growth journey exactly a year before that. I had the privilege to do a deep dive study with a few of my friends/ex-colleagues on the "15 Invaluable Laws of Growth".

• It opened doors for me that I had not seen before.
• It made me better. It helped me achieve my goals as a Motivation Speaker & Trainer.
• Over time, it created momentum in my life and the lives of people who I came across.

As a Live2Lead host, I was licensed to host mastermind groups to facilitate the lessons from "How Successful People Think" and I hosted multiple cohorts which allowed me to continually revisit these 11 thinking skills and identify the ones I was really good at. One of them was definitely Big Picture Thinking :-)

As I indicated in my previous article (see link at the bottom of this one), I knew I was good at a few other thinking skills but not all of them and I was keen on getting good with others and mastering them all. I thought it was important for me to become a successful woman.

There were 2 questions before me:

1. What should I do if I knew that I am good with a few of the thinking skills?
2. Should I master all of them?

My mentor John Maxwell says in "Today Matters" on pg. 136 "No, I believe that is a mistake". Why does he say that? John says that it's a rare thinker who has skill in all eleven thinking areas. Focus your attention to the skills that you are already good at since it will take moderate amount of time and energy to make you excellent. If you really gave it your all, you could become a world-class "big picture thinker", if I gave more time on big picture thinking which I know I have been applying in my career as an IT Project/Program Manager.

The next question is what do you do about your weakness (or as I like to refer to it as "areas of improvement"). Gather people around you who are strong in those areas. Over the past 4 years, I have surrounded myself with positive influencers who think differently than me. I do a lot of reading, I listen to leadership podcasts, I watch biographical movies which allows me to think creatively. I continue to spend time with good thinkers, the exposure sharpens my own thinking.

Contact Anupama Kinatukara, PgMP?, PMP? to be part of the next cohort to study one of the books mentioned in this article. Check out the recommendations on LinkedIn to see what she has been doing for others who trusted her in their own leadership journey.

Where has this taken me so far? I have been invited to be part of the Panel Discussion being hosted by PMI New Jersey Chapter - talking about Generational Diversity at the Workplace.

Next time I will share how COMMITMENT gave me TENACITY! Stay tuned and do subscribe to my YouTube Channel and this Newsletter. Join one of my upcoming sessions to explore possibilities that is outside your comfort zone and learn how an Accountability Partner like me could accelerate your path at your workplace and your influence at home :-)

No matter what kind of goals you have or obstacles you need to overcome, thinking can give you an advantage. And that advantage can change your life for the better, just as it has changed my life!

Link to my previous article - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/just-today-thinking-precedes-achievement-kinatukara-pgmp-pmp-/

Thinking alone won't guarantee success. You need to think about the right things. Let's focus on the positive and move forward in the right direction.