Taking It Personally

Welcome to the Art of Leadership Mastery?. I'm excited to share some of the latest on leadership, clarity, purpose and personal growth sharing my life's experiences and insights from over 40+ years in business and leadership. I invite you to subscribe for complete access to all editions. Now for this week...

I've been writing about Purpose, Vision, Culture, and Trust mostly among other topics for some time now and how to think about these in the context of your leadership skills and how these impact your business.

Today, let's get personal.

I was asked recently to speak about stress and anxiety and how these affect leaders based on my bestselling book, 5 Minute Mastery?, The Surprising Secrets For Transforming Your Stress to Success and Mastering What's Important . ?I also wrote a piece recently for LinkedIn on these topics.

Whether you like to admit it or not, how you show up - your mood, your energy, your thoughts and your emotions - have a direct and immediate impact on the people you lead.?As I like to say:

"Everything flows from you."

With this concept in mind, there are a few lessons I've learned in my 40 years of?in-the-trenches?leadership and business experiences.?

I am compelled to share much of my experiences with you, my readers.?That's why you're here (I hope), to learn something that will help you navigate the complexities of life and business.?

And with the complexities and paradoxes you face nowadays, it's a wonder that you can keep it all together.??One thing is certain,?change?and the?pace of change?will continue to accelerate.?It always does and always will.

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes".?

- Andrew Carnegie

So to keep it?simple, here are a few of my best ideas to help you be successful and be the leader that you want to be.

Have a clear Purpose?of where YOU want to go.??

What does your future look like five, ten, 20 years from now??Use your vision of your future to set tangible goals for yourself that are time-based.?(Everybody knows this one, right?)

Then use the?Hedgehog Principle?and?the Flywheel Effect?(Good to Great, Jim Collins) on a personal level to up-level your success, i.e., focus on your purpose and take consistent action.??

Time to create a new habit!

Create some?Structural Tension?in your subconscious.?You do this by having a clear vision of what success looks like and then visualize that success.??

To be truly effective, visualization needs to occur daily.?So make it a new habit.

You may already be visualizing but not the way you think or want.?If you're stuck on worrying about negative outcomes, you are very effectively creating results that you most?Do Not?want.?

Flip the script and shift your thinking positively.??Focus on what you?DO?want.

"The only thing worse than being blind?

is having sight but no vision."?-?Helen Keller

Believe that it's possible.??

Maybe you have a vision for a different kind of organization, a different culture a different way of doing business.?Maybe you have a different vision for what you want your life to be.?

If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.?

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does.?That's what makes you a winner."?

-?Venus Williams

Give up!

Give up trying to control outcomes.?(This is a big one for me, and a lesson that I've had to learn the hard way).??What do you have control over??Say it with me now...?Your?actions!??

Some more Give-ups:

• Give up the phrase:?"I can't, or We can't".?It only limits you and them in creating solutions.?
• Give up being right. There are multiple realities to every situation.
• Give up having to win the argument.?Just listen without judgement.

There are solutions to every problem.?What's needed from you now more than ever is to embrace a mindset of?flexibility?to find them.??One of the principles of the martial arts that I learned was: A flexible body makes a flexible mind. So be flexible.

Keep it to 5 and no more!

All of the above is great, but there's one more piece to make it all real.?You gotta take action!

Problem is you probably have a To-Do list that is pages long.?That's okay, but here's some advice:??

Whether it's your company's strategic initiatives or your daily To-Do's, plan to achieve only 5 each day.?Any more than that and you diminish your effectiveness.

For the longer lists, do what one of my mentors, Jack Canfield , does.??Chunk-it-down.?There's great power in simplifying the complex.?

By breaking all those to-do's down to bite-size chunks, you'll find that you will get more done, more quickly, and with the added bonus, you won't feel like your choking from all the anxiety of the overwhelm.??

Overcome the Overwhelm

One of my clients was stuck, frozen in a state of in-action because she felt overwhelmed. She described it as feeling like she had to keep "spinning all the plates" to keep the business moving in the right direction.

Here's the thing: you can't do it - lead - all alone. It's easy to fall into a trap of thinking you have to solve all the problems and "spin all the plates" to get things done the right way.

Use the four-quadrant system - like the AIDE System? - to re-evaluate your work and leverage your unique abilities. Decide what to add, increase, delegate or eliminate. You can access the AIDE System(pdf) here.

Some Final Thoughts.

I wrote about The Flywheel Effect and purpose-driven flywheel last week.?

Consistent action built around a clear vision of what success looks like builds momentum and then breakthroughs to achieving that success happen.

Create your own personal flywheel built on your own renewed sense of purpose and vision.??

And one more thing:??Have Fun!??By practicing?gratitude daily you will reconnect with the?Joy?of why you do what you do.

Until next time!

Think Differently

P.S. ?For instant access the AIDE System downloadable pdf, Click Here.

John J. Fenton is the CEO and Founder of?John J Fenton Executive Coaching. ??He mentors CEOs and Managing Partners who love growing their businesses and having more freedom without all the stress.

Spanning over four decades of real life, in-the-trenches business and leadership experience, John is a leading authority with an approach to leadership that is radically different.?He brings out the very best in leaders and their teams through a fusion of real-life experiences, current thinking on leadership and business, and practicality. He is an award-winning speaker, a black belt in the martial art of tai chi and author of the bestselling book, "5 Minute Mastery?, The Surprising Secrets for Transforming Your Stress to Success and Mastering What’s Important."