This weekend I watched a magician enthral an audience with his art. As he performed his sleight of hand and misdirection I wondered at the thousands of hours he must have invested to achieve mastery.
Mastery involves focus, concentration, passion, intention, commitment, and discipline. We can’t achieve mastery in everything in fact most people are unlikely to achieve mastery in anything as they dabble in this and hack about at that. Continue Reading »
I recently conducted ‘Critical Skills for Leaders and Senior Managers’ in Singapore and Malaysia; during these programs I surveyed the participants for their desired take-aways – 80% of the attendees wanted to know how to influence their boss.
Research has shown that the inability to build a successful relationship with the boss is a significant reason for managers failing or not reaching their full potential.
When I approach this topic I encounter a number of mindsets that lead to an inability to effectively influence, these include:
Have you seen the TV series ‘Lie to Me’? Lie to Me is based on the work of Paul Ekman, a psychologist who has been a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. The show is compelling because the main character can read when people are lying and appears to have an almost supernatural ability to read minds.
If you are in any kind of relationship; whether it be work, social or romantic the ability to read the other person’s thoughts and emotions about a topic will improve communication providing the skill is used ethically. Continue Reading »
In my experience one of the most challenging tasks for managers is delegation and one trait of a leader is the ability to effectively delegate.
Management and Leadership require getting work done, with and through others whilst gaining their trust and co-operation, the secret is that you have to give trust before you can gain it.
Many of the executives I have coached have struggled with the issue of trust as they have got where they are today by being controlling and see delegation as loss of control. Logically these people know that they must delegate but become frustrated that when they try to delegate they don’t get the results they were hoping for. Continue Reading »
I recently engaged in an online dialogue on, sex, politics and religion. The person who started the post made the comment that we should NEVER talk about these topics.
Now I understand where the writer was coming from;talking about sex, politics and religion can break rapport, create conflict and ruin the career of the unwary but I have a different perspective. As humans, sex, politics and religion play a significant part of our lives and the biases and meanings we bring to these topics will significantly affect our behaviour; so to not talk about them can be equally dangerous. Continue Reading »
You only get one chance at a first impression. In this video Andrew Bryant, CSP shares some powerful tips for making a great first impression when you have to present in front of an audience.
The road to hell may be paved with good intentions but this is usually because of bad execution.
An intention is a frame of mind that drives action, when you have a clearly defined intention you gain a laser like focus and begin to take action. Effective execution occurs when intentions are transformed into well thought out behaviours.
People can often read your intentions but the world rewards your effective execution. Here are four questions to ask:
What is it you want to do?
What actions do you need to take?
What will be the effect of those actions?
Will these effects be in line with your intention?
Here is a short video on intentionality when it comes to public speaking:
Learn from my good friend and colleague, Ian Berry, Alexander Blass and myself about how doing good is great for your business and your life – Singapore, August 17, 2010. (click the image for details).
If there is any hypnotic trance state that is the ultimate one for a Neuro-Semanticist, it is the genius state. But no, the use of the word genius does not mean it is a hypnotic state for increasing your I.Q., that’s not the purpose of this particular trance. Instead this is the induction into a state of being all there. It is a state of absolute focus on one thing. Normally, when you experience it, you are in a powerful state of concentration and absorption. And when you are there people may think that you have really tranced out or they may think that you really have fabulous powers of focus and will power. The genius state is a state wherein you are in “flow” and even better, you can turn the flow state on and off at will. Continue Reading »
I have a limited number of complimentary tickets available so if you want to learn about leadership and influence and are in Singapore, contact the organisers and mention this blog and they will have a ticket emailed to you (whilst stocks last).
This weekend I watched a magician enthral an audience with his art. As he performed his sleight of hand and misdirection I wondered at the thousands of hours he must have invested to achieve mastery.
