Seek Others of Your Species
Every two weeks or so, I have a phone conversation with a good friend of mine Julie. She’s also a coach. We did our training together and have kept in close contact ever since. This close contact we share has proved SO valuable to us both as we share our discoveries, collaborate on ideas, hold each other’s butt to the fire (ie., hold each other accountable to get stuff done) and generally sharpen the professional skills we are developing (or point to resources the other might enjoy).
When you’re a solo business owner, it’s so important to have relationships like this with outcomes like these. And there are other roles where keeping close to others of your ’species’ can prove invaluable.
The single parent. The Dad. The buck-stops-here Boss. The Church minister. The Youth Worker. The Creative type. For all of you, it’s very very easy to become isolated, unchallenged, unsupported, stale. If you’re feeling like that, I encourage you: go looking! Refresh those old contacts; join a group; have a beer or a lunch with someone else from your species.
Twice this year, I’ve run 8-week Dad groups in my local community, each with a different group of men. Both times, one man in each group said something to this effect: “I thought these things just happened in my family. I thought there was something wrong with me, with us. Now I now we’re normal and it happens everywhere. I’m a lot more relaxed at home and less stressed about how I’m doing as a Dad.”
Seek others of your species. We all need each other…
Hate Something, Change Something
Twenty-year marketing veteran and business-owner Roland Reinhart has a creative and seriously good message for those of us who manage people or manage projects, and he explores the world of work and marketing and business on his website Hate Something, Change Something.
I am really enjoying his latest podcast series: Run Your Business like Gordon Ramsey.
Eye-catching title huh? I wasn’t disappointed when I listened to episode one: HSCS-001 - Pt1, Run your business like Gordon Ramsay
I recommend you do the same!
What Are You Talking Yourself Into?
You know that relentless chatter that goes on inside your own head? Like a running commentary on the world around you and your performance in it?
Sometimes I’m aware of it and how it’s affecting me; sometimes I’m in control of it, using it to my advantage; at still other times it seems to run on autopilot affecting my moods and decisions without me intervening.
As we begin each day, we’re talking ourselves into something, whether it’s a mood or a decision. For some it might be either talking themselves into taking a sickday or going to work. For others, ruminating on their back pain unwittingly drags them into a downward spiral of further stress, pain and unhappiness.
And for yet others they spend their day talking themselves into feeling good and behaving in a way that’s actually helpful to them…
“Today I will exceed the expectations of others”
“Today I will take that risk … even if it doesn’t come off, I’ll learn, I’ll grow, I’ll be stronger! Let’s go for it!”
“I’m not lazy, I’ve just been distracted. I’m going to cut off some excess baggage from my life and focus on what’s important”
“I know what I’m doing. I don’t have to get it right. I just have to get it done!”
This is not that shmalzy warm-&-fuzzy hyped-up positive-thinking thinking that many of us distrust and can see right through. This is a naturally occuring process between mind and emotions, between thoughts/actions and the way our body feels and responds. It’s a snowball effect as one of my dear friends - a fitness trainer - calls it.
To use another metaphor, you and I get to set the track that the train of our thoughts will run on for the day.
If I set it on the track of Grace, Self-respect, Adventure, Persistence and Optimism then I can already predict where I’ll be emotionally by the end of the day. I’ll be in a good space. I can’t predict the way the cards will fall, or the people that will willingly or unwittingly get in my way, or what’s going to happen with the Dow today. But if my thoughts are running on that wholesome track, I may well be surprised at how many of the circumstances of my day bend themselves to my advantage … and how others that might otherwise have caused me stress, are like water off that duck’s back …
So. What are you talking yourself into today? What are you talking yourself out of? Try it: set the train of your thoughts running on the Grace/Selfrespect/Empathy/Adventure/Persistence/Optimism track.
And reflect at the end of your day on where that train has lead you…
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Great Circle is a professional coaching and development firm, specialising in self-management for managers. Please browse some of the articles and use some of the resources you see here. And feel free to leave a comment or two! I wish you the best of success!
