Category Archives: Leadership

Our thoughts cause us more pain than any problems, real or imagined. www.jaywren.com

Thinking: Learning how to Manage the Pain Between our Ears

Job Skills, Leadership, Success

Thinking: Happiness is easy when everything is going our way. However, we can suffer, even when have everything we want. By managing our thinking, we can find joy from learning how to think about our world.

Thinking: Learning how to Manage the Pain Between our Ears

Being happy is a normal. Staying unhappy is not. www.jaywren.com

Traditionally, we see our thoughts in three categories: the past, the present, the future. I add another category: the flow.

Ruminating

Ruminating about or regretting the past is painful. Additionally, filling our heads with anger over the past is enticing. We can imagine how we could have said or done things to people whom, we believe, have harmed us. Rather than allowing the past to haunt us, we can process these thoughts by taking simple steps to change our thinking. Simply taking a deep breath can change our thinking. Also, getting into action can change our focus. Take a walk. Finish a task we have been putting off. Writing a gratitude list put us into action mentally and can alter our mood.

Worrying

Worrying is a thief of our joy and clarity. We see problems as insurmountable. Worrying about the future steals our energy. Additionally, worrying clutters our mind. Rather than worrying, we can write about our concerns. From there, we can seek advice. Additionally, we can create a plan to see solutions. We might find that clearing our minds, we can see that we have options. Even when faced with unavoidable problems, we can prepare to meet them. Preparation builds confidence and helps us we that we will have the wisdom to deal with frightening situations.

Here are things that help me feel happy return to clarity and relief. First, can we simply let the feelings pass? Thinking about the unhappy experience heightens our unhappiness. Even years later, when we think of bad experiences, the unhappy feelings can return. Therefore, not thinking about the cause of our unhappiness allows us to find happiness and return to the present moment. A process for letting feelings pass is to sit with a feeling and focus on the feeling, not the things that we think are causing our unhappiness.

Second, can we change things that make us unhappy? If we can, we can concentrate on solutions and not the problem.

Present Moment

Thinking is still necessary. Sometimes diligent thinking is necessary. When I learn new skills, I must carefully think about what I am doing. I am in the present moment. But as I become more skillful, I move from the present moment to the highest level of thinking.

Flow

Returning the present moment is simple. We can focus on the things in front of us. An even higher level of thinking is living in the flow. Some people call this psychological condition “the zone.”

We stop thinking. We just move through time and action without analysis or distraction.

When I was a Navy officer, standing bridges watches was stressful. I commanded a watch team to keep the ship on course and speed. Additionally, I made changes in course and speed to keep the ship safe and on task. At first, I did a great deal of analytical thinking. As I became for capable, I was no longer analyzing. I simply performed.

Today, when I am writing I often find that my thoughts become like a flow. In those moments, I feel peace. My vigilance turns to a simple awareness of what is happening and what to do.

Gaining respect in the workplace affects your income, job security, and career progress. www.jaywren.com

Gaining Respect in the Workplace in 10 Easy Steps

Leadership, Success

Gaining respect in the workplace affects your income, job security, and career progress. Here are 10 ways to get the respect you deserve.

Gaining Respect by Giving Credit

People gain respect when they give credit to the correct person. Giving credit is a compliment with substance.

On the other hand, people who claim credit for the work of other people lose respect. People who know that these people are undeserving of that credit will resent the dishonesty.

If you give credit, you will get respect and make your company stronger.

Own Your Mistakes

You will get respect when you own your mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes. Successful people admit them and do not repeat them. People will respect you if you correct your mistakes and move on.

Don’t make excuses for failing to do your work. Be honest. You just did not do the work. You regret it. When you admit your mistakes and not repeat them, you will get respect.

Do Your Job

You will get respect when you do your ob.

Get a copy of your job description. Read it with your boss. Discuss regularly with your boss what you are doing. When you are uncertain about what you are doing, ask your boss for information.

Your boss will respect you for knowing and doing what you are supposed to do. Your co-workers will respect you.

Let People Do their Job

You will get respect when you let other people do their job.

There are two parts to letting people do their job.

First, do not do let people take advantage of you. Being a team player and helping other people occasionally is one thing. Having people use you to do their work is not the way to get respect at work.

Second, do not interfere with other people by meddling in their job. People do not always want your advice. People certainly do not want you to do their job and take credit for what their job.

By respecting the job of other people, people will respect you.

Lighten Up

You will get respect when you lighten up.

If you don’t take yourself too seriously, people will respect you more. Your daily routine is a marathon, not a sprint. If you come to work every day and load the workplace with pressure, you will create tension.

Be sincere. Work hard. Be straightforward with your supervisors, co-workers, and people you manage. Take your work seriously. However, don’t take everything so seriously that you can’t accept mistakes and adjustments in the daily routine. People will enjoy working with you and you will get respect.

Keeping Your Word

You will get respect when you keep your word.

Honor your commitments. If you know that you can’t do something or that you will not do something, be honest about it. Don’t make a commitment to do things that you can’t or will not do. Keeping your word is basic to gaining respect.

Punctuality

You will get respect when you are punctual.

People will quickly get weary of dealing with you if you are late all the time. Make your appointments on time. Complete your work on time.

You will get respect when people know they can trust you to complete your work on time.

Personal Appearance

You will get respect when you take care of your personal appearance.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Keep your hair groomed. Keep your shirt or blouse tucked in. Wear clean clothes.

Don’t overdress for the job. You just want to look professional. You want to look neat.

If your boss wears khakis and an open-collar shirt, don’t wear a three-piece suit. If your boss wears a blouse and a skirt, don’t wear expensive dresses.

You want to look like part of the team. Imagine the manager of a major league baseball team wearing a suit in the dugout during the baseball game instead of wearing a team uniform. Imagine a professional basketball coach wearing a basketball uniform instead of a suit.

You will get respect when you respect yourself in how you dress.

Gossip

You will get respect when you avoid gossip and protect confidences

A quick way to ruin relationships is to gossip. Avoid people who gossip. The only people who respect people who gossip are other people who gossip.

Keep confidences. When someone tells you something personal or private, keep it to yourself. Even if you do not make a commitment to keep the information private, respect the trust that people have given you. People do not respect people who break their confidences.

You will get respect as a person who is trustworthy.

Gaining Respect through Confidence

You will get respect when you show confidence.

Show confident in your body language. Show confidence in what you say, and how you say it.

“Courage is grace under pressure,” to quote Ernest Hemingway. Staying calm under pressure shows confidence is grace under any circumstance.

Companies that produce great leaders become greater companies. ~ www.jaywren.com

Leadership Development: A Four-Step Process for Success

Leadership, Success

Leadership Development:  How can companies hire and train people to become leaders? Here are four steps to effective leadership development.

Companies that produce great leaders become greater companies. ~ www.jaywren.com

Leadership Development — Four Steps

Creating future leaders is critical to the long-term growth of a company. An element in succession planning, creating leaders from within increases moral, loyalty, and engagement. Here are four elements to leadership development.

  1. Hire for Leadership
  2. Teach Responsibility, Authority, and Accountability
  3. Continual Training for Leadership
  4. Increase Responsibility

Hire for Leadership

People in any organizations have specific levels of responsibility.  Some of those people will stay in the same job for their entire time with the company.

Other people come into a company as developmental candidates.  These people may start in entry-level jobs.  However, the company has a plan to move these people into bigger roles.  Their responsibilities increase as they master each job.

Teach Responsibility, Authority, and Accountability

For new leaders to become successful, they must know their responsibility, their authority, and their accountability.

Responsibility defines the tasks and activities under a leader’s management. Authority is the power to make decisions and the power to hold team members accountable.  Accountability in leadership development creates an understanding of expectations of performance.

Additionally, leaders must use these elements to teach their team members what the leader expects of them. Leaders can use these elements as reminders for team members to stay on task.

Train for Leadership

Leadership is not a mere concept. Companies can measure the success of their leaders based on results. The best companies don’t wait to have a leader fail. These companies have experienced leaders who can teach new leaders how to succeed.  An ounce of foresight is worth a pound of hindsight.

These leaders must develop styles and practices that make their team as effective as possible. Training, hands-on management, greater feedback, asking questions that provide useful information are some of the methods companies can teach new leaders.

Increase Responsibility

For leaders to continue to grow, their responsibility must increase.  Companies promote new leaders into bigger positions.  These positions have a higher pay grade.  Additionally, they have the greater responsibility.

However, companies cannot always promote leaders. But they must keep the leaders growing and engaged.

What companies can do is relieve experienced future leaders of bottom rung responsibilities.  At the same time, companies can give them responsibilities that will prepare them for greater responsibility.

Creating new leaders is an essential trait of great leadership. ~ www.jaywren.com

Creating Leaders: 4 Elements of Leadership Development

Leadership, Success

Creating Leaders:  How can companies hire and train people to become leaders? Here are four steps to effective leadership development.

Companies that produce great leaders become greater companies. ~ www.jaywren.com

Creating Leaders — Four Steps

Creating future leaders is critical to the long-term growth of a company. An element in succession planning, creating leaders from within increases moral, loyalty, and engagement. Here are four elements to leadership development.

  1. Hire for Leadership
  2. Teach Responsibility, Authority, and Accountability
  3. Continual Training for Leadership
  4. Increase Responsibility

Hire for Leadership

People in any organizations have specific levels of responsibility.  Some of those people will stay in the same job for their entire time with the company.

Other people come into a company as developmental candidates.  These people may start in entry-level jobs.  However, the company has a plan to move these people into bigger roles.  Their responsibilities increase as they master each job.

Teach Responsibility, Authority, and Accountability

For new leaders to become successful, they must know their responsibility, their accountability, and their authority. Responsibility defines the tasks and activities under a leader’s management. Accountability creates an understanding of what to expect for failing to manage responsibilities. Authority is the power to make decisions and the power to hold team members accountable. Last, a leader must know the limits of their authority.  They must know when to ask for direction from the people for whom they work.

Additionally, leaders must use these elements to teach their team members what the leader expects of them. Leaders can use these elements as reminders for team members to stay on task and meet the leader’s expectations.

Train for Leadership

Most of the articles that I read on types of leaders do not mention how much the conditions in an organization affect the leadership role and style. In an ideal situation, leaders have the authority to hire the best people. They can put people on their team who only need to know the objectives to perform successfully. In this case, leaders have more freedom to use the leadership style that prefer.  They can be the coach, the servant leader, the hands-off leader, the strategist, etc.

In less than ideal situation, leaders have must operate with the circumstances they inherit. For example, a leader may have no control over which people get assigned to their team. These leaders may have to deal people in positions for which the people are not qualified.  Additionally, leaders may have to work under strict guidelines that limit the leader’s authority to make decisions and direct their teams.  In worst case scenario, some leaders must rely on other departments for support. And, some support departments just don’t support the teams they serve.

However, the leader is still accountable for managing their team for success. These leaders must develop styles and practices that make their team as effective as possible. Training, hands-on management, greater feedback, asking questions that provide useful information for the team member and the manager: these are some of the things a manager can do to make the team as effective as possible.

Increase Responsibility

For leaders to continue to grow, their responsibility must increase.  Companies promote new leaders into bigger positions.  These positions have a higher pay grade.  Additionally, they have the greater responsibility.

However, companies cannot always promote leaders. But they must keep the leaders growing and engaged.

What companies can do is relieve experienced future leaders of bottom rung responsibilities.  At the same time, companies can give them responsibilities that will prepare them for greater responsibility.

Toxic Personalities: A Poison in the Workplace

Emotional Intelligence, Health and Fitness, Leadership, Success

Toxic personalities create stress that spreads throughout an organization.  What are the skills that you can develop to survive and even change toxic people?

Know What You Can Control

If you have the authority to act on the people with toxic personalities, it is your responsibility to change the behavior of these people or remove them from the workplace.

If you do not have authority over these people, there are steps you can take to steel yourself and even change their behavior.

Additionally, if you can in no way change the conditions of working with toxic personalities, you might consider changing jobs. Dealing with the daily stress of working with difficult people is painful in ways that can affect your mental and physical health.

Anger

Acting out of anger can just make the problem worse. The person with the toxic personality can become offended and defensive. They see you (your actions or personality) as the problem in the relationship.

On the other hand, you must prepare to be firm. I have dealt successfully with toxic behavior by confronting a person with the facts and consequences of their actions. However, changing a person’s personality is difficult. The process takes more than showing the facts of their behavior. Personality change, especially with toxic personalities, takes a commitment from the person with the problem

Skills for Surviving or Even Growing around Toxic Personalities.

Toxic people: When you can’t fight them, don’t join them.  However, make yourself healthier.

When I can’t change the behavior of toxic people or avoid these people altogether, I focus on the changes I can make in myself to become a healthier person.

Here are some things that work for me.

1. I write about my feelings.

When I write about my feelings, I cut the sting of painful emotions.

In writing about my emotions, I name my feelings.  Fear, anger anxiety, insecurity, and resentment are common feelings that people have around toxic people. You may have other bad feelings. When I experience these feelings, I write about them.

2. I write about my actions.

In this step, I can see what things I can change in my own behavior to reduce the damage in a toxic relationship.  For example, if I act out of anger, I can change my actions.

3. I discuss what I am feeling with a mentor.

One of the problems with writing about my feelings is that I have trouble seeing solutions.  Instead I focus on how people have harmed me.

However, I have close friends I can trust.  These people keep what I tell them a secret.  These friends are mentors who show me how I can grow and improve my behavior.

4. Avoid the Poison: When I can’t change the behavior of toxic people, I avoid them. If there is no reason to have to deal with them, I don’t.

Getting Discovered: How Powerful People Find Great Jobs

Emotional Intelligence, Interviewing, Job Skills, Leadership, Quotes, Success

Getting Discovered: You have all the skills, the talent, intelligence, charisma, and emotional intelligence for success.  But what does it matter if no one knows?

Spread the Word

Retailers, manufacturers, and service providers have resources for putting their name out there.  They run ads in print, radio, television, social media, and billboards.

Furthermore, they sponsor public events.  They take part in community service projects with volunteers and donations.  Their executives do interviews on mass media.

Additionally, these companies have the money and the professional support to engage shoppers and spread create awareness of their products and services.

Confidential Job Search

You can use the same principles of putting your name out here as companies use.

Furthermore, you can promote your job search with nominal expense and minimal exposure.

Here are some suggestions.

Recruiters

There are pluses and minuses to using recruiters.  The top recruiters represent companies that offer more than a job.  They offer great opportunities for a career with long-term professional and financial growth.

Furthermore, unlike some employment agencies, recruiters don’t charge the job seeker a fee for helping them find a job.  The hiring companies pay the fee.

If you are uncertain about the terms of working with recruiters, ask each recruiter directly who pays the placement fee or any other recruiting costs.

Applying for a Job In-Person

When you apply for a job in person, bring the information with you that you need to complete an application.  Some examples include your salary history, job history, and references.

Resumes

Sending recruiters and hiring managers your resume is an essential step in getting discovered in a professional career.

Important point:  you don’t need permission to send your resume.  All you need is a postal address, email address, or a website upload link.

Recruiters on LinkedIn, often have their email address on their LinkedIn profile.

Volunteering

Volunteering for activities where you can use your professional skills is a way to expand your network and become discovered.  Furthermore, these volunteering opportunities can help you meet employers and meet people who know employers.

Internet Profiles

You can post your profile in multiple places on the Internet. The best places include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Additionally, if you are willing to create a website, you can put your name out there as a source of information and assistance to other people.

Speaking Opportunities

If you have the skills and the contacts to speak in front of audiences, you can become discovered for your skills and experience at events where employers will see you.

Based on your skills and education, your opportunities to speak or do interviews can vary from mass media to trade shows or college programs.

For example, when I worked for Polaroid, I would contact local television stations to give interviews and discuss new cameras.

Conclusion

Just as retailers, manufacturers, and service providers do, you can become discovered by putting your name out there where the best people to help you will find it.

Often, it’s the things that we don’t do that count the most. ~ www.jaywren.com

Habits: Giving Up the Behavior that Weakens Our Careers

Emotional Intelligence, Job Skills, Leadership

Habits: The things we don’t do are as important as the things we do to be a winner in the workplace. Here are eight things to avoid as you work to build a successful career and become a leader among your peers.

Often, it’s the things that we don’t do that count the most. ~ www.jaywren.com

The Pitfalls to Winning Behavior

Some of the pitfalls to winning behavior are habits that seem normal, but annoy others and detract from our accomplishments.  I have been guilty of some of the things I am going to discuss.  Seeing the harm of these habits has helped me become more engaged with other people and more mindful of their needs and interests. In ways that I can’t measure, avoiding these behaviors has help me build relationships and increase my professional network.

1. Using Long, Uncommon Words

Building your vocabulary is a good practice. However, using big words to try to sound intelligent and impress people is phony and annoying.  Furthermore, using long or uncommon words confuses people and detracts from your point.

It is narcissistic to throw around words that few people know or that people know as pretentious. You become like a person who poses in front of the mirror in a public restroom.

As a lesson about my own use of words that meant little but I used to impress others, my Mother once said to me, “You are so bombastic and I am so illiterate that you will have to elucidate for me to comprehend.” Lesson delivered; lesson learned.

2. Using Facilities and Parking for the Handicapped

People who need handicapped facilities have no choice.  They need them when they need them.

Abusing the use of handicapped parking is not only annoying, it is illegal.  Most states have stiff fines for using handicapped parking without legal authorization.  Furthermore, most people have no tolerance for people who abuse the use of handicapped parking.

Restroom facilities become more challenging, because some locations only have one or stalls.  I have been in a one-stall restroom when a person in a wheelchair was waiting in line. The situation was awkward even though I had no choice. The best practice is, whenever possible, to defer to people who might need the handicapped facility.

3. Yacking on Your Cell Phone

There is something odd about strangers carrying on a conversation on a cell phone when they are next to you.

They have entered your space and are holding a conversation that doesn’t involve you.

I have been guilty of using a cell phone in a supermarket.  As my wife gave me instructions on the things that she wanted me to buy, I passed one shopper three times.  The third time he suggested that I stop walking around talking on my phone and make a list.

This was an awakening to me just how easily cell conversations annoy the people around us.

Around the office, it is good to be aware when you are carrying on cell phone conversations around people who aren’t involved in the discussion.

4. In Meetings, Act Like You Belong

Texting and sending emails on a phone at the wrong time can be just as annoying.

At work, you can quickly annoy people, including people you need to impress.  Look at the situation.  You are in a meeting, and everyone is discussing the topic of the meeting.  Your mind wanders from the discussion, and you suddenly feel the urge to send a message or read your email.

You mind tells you that you must deal with your priorities. However, you are creating a distraction for everyone in the room.  People who are in a meeting are mentally like members in a marching band.  They are in coordination. When you start texting or sending emails, you break step and become a distraction.

5. Habits of Blocking the Exits

Blocking the exits or any other passageway is annoying.  Some people do not know how to navigate blocked hallways or aisles.  Other people feel awkward asking to get past.

People often gather at the entrance to meetings or at the door when leaving.  If this is a problem in your office, I recommend that the senior person in the room ask people not to block the door when they are leaving.

On the other hand, if you do need to get past people in a blocked passageway, simply say, “Pardon me.

6. Constant Complaining

Negative information creates bad moods.  A constant flow of negative information destroys morale and increases turnover.

Everyone has problems.  Solving those problems makes you look like a leader.  Whining about those problems not only is annoying.  It soon makes you look incompetent.

Instead of complaining, especially constant complaining, focus on solutions.

7. Self-Reference

Receiving credit for your work is a crucial step in the path to success.  However, constantly talking about yourself is annoying and makes people see you as shallow.

If you are not receiving credit for the work you are doing. talk with your managers.  Having them reference your accomplishments is far more effective than when you are doing it.  Furthermore, avoiding this behavior has helped me build a strong network.

Additionally, give credit to other people for their accomplishments.  People not only enjoy receiving credit.  They often remember the people who helped them receive credit.  This type of winning behavior will help you build a powerful network.

8. Habits – Trying to Be Funny

I remember an article that helped me know that not everyone understands the impact of their failed attempts at humor.  The author started his article with religious jokes.  These jokes were off topic.

The jokes weren’t clever.  They were flippant.  Furthermore, they distracted from the point of the article.

The author was undermining his own work, by not practicing winning behavior.

Network Event Anxiety: Tools and Skills for Success

Emotional Intelligence, Job Skills, Leadership, Success

Network Event Anxiety: becoming effective at networking events may require that you step outside of your comfort zone. Meeting new people, especially for introverts is never easy. At times, extroverts feel awkward when networking. Feeling uncertain in new situations is common, perhaps even normal. 

Preparation for Overcoming Network Event Anxiety

Talking with strangers is easy for me. However, I have had times when I show up at an event and felt anxious about approaching people I don’t know. These experiences have shown me the importance of preparing for the things I want to accomplish and the people I want to meet.

Furthermore, if networking events are difficult for you, the things I do may help you become more confident and more successful when meeting people  by bringing the tools and developing the skills for overcoming network-event anxiety

Where to Start Upon Arrival

To gain confidence, I start with people I think I would enjoy meeting. If I am attending a trade show, I may go by a booth where I know the products and the people. Sometimes meeting with current clients put a face with a voice. Sometimes people I know will introduce me to the people who are standing next to them. Close clients or friends are often quick to introduce me to people other people in their group.

There is a flow in meeting people. As I meet more people, my confidence grows. I get into the mental flow of meeting new people.

Prepare Materials When Event Networking

Taking the correct tools is one of the most important thing I can do for meeting success of overcoming network event anxiety. I do take my smartphone. But I try not to use it. The whole purpose of event networking is meeting people in person. I do like to work with a pen and paper. I take a leather-bound portfolio with a legal pad. The binder makes it easy for me to take notes without bending over a table.

I carry a one-inch-thick stack of business cards.  Also, I keep my cards in one pocket and the cards of the people I meet in a second pocket. When I leave an event with many new contacts, I want to put them into my expanding database of contacts. The cards make building this database possible. For people who do not have cards, I make notes on their contact information on my legal pad.

If people are handing out brochures, I take brochures that contain names and contact information for people I want in my database. Often, especially at trade shows, the event planners provide the name of the companies that are in attendance. The brochures become lists of companies I may want to prospect in the future.

Additionally, this brochure helps me find my way around and create lists of additional people to contact as the event moves along. Therefore, I can expand on my plan to meet even more people.

List Contacts in Advance of Event Networking

I make a list of people I specifically want to meet. By making a list of people I want to meet, I can reduce the stress on me through preparation for seeing the people. I can also do a better job of seeing the people I need to see.

If there is a brochure of attendees, I may go down early or even the day before the event to get a copy of the list before the event. The night before the events, I expand on my plans of whom to meet and in what order I meet them.

Weeks leading up to the event, I call or email people to make plans for meeting them. I do not always make an appointment with them. Networking events are free flowing. However, I can let them know of my interest in seeing them.

For the appointments that I do schedule, I get people’s phone number to call do that I can call them if plans change for either them or me.

Things to Discuss When Event Networking

Remember some basics.

  1. If speaking with new people makes you uncomfortable, prepare things to say and questions to ask.
  2. Show an interest in what the other person is saying. The interest you take in the other person reduces your self-consciousness.
  3. Ask the person questions about points that interest you.
  4. Congratulate the person upon successes.
  5. Listen with empathy.
  6. Connect with what the person is saying from their point of view. Ask questions about how they reached conclusions or solved problems.

The Positive Side of Network-Event Anxiety

Anxiety is a signal that tells us to expect things. If we use that signal as a message to prepare for our meetings, we can do a better job of getting ready and our meetings will go better. Moreover, I anxiety will go down.

Winning Performance: How to Build on Your Skills for Success

Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Quotes, Success

Winning Performance is not only about how hard you work or how many skills you have. It’s, also, about having the soft skills for working effectively. Day in, day out, equally talented people give different levels of winning performance. Likewise, equally talented people can have widely different career success. Here are 7 steps that will help you accomplish more with your time.

Seek Advice for Winning Performance.

Seek advice before acting on important decisions. It is so easy for me to go into difficult situations and make large decisions with the belief that I already have all the answers.  It is equally easy for me to overlook things that I should have considered before acting.  I have better results when I get ideas and solutions from other people.  I better understand my circumstances by discussing them with someone else.

Get the Greatest Results

Get the greatest results from each activity. The National Football League wide receiver Jerry Rice holds 23 NFL records.  He caught long passes. More importantly is the greater distance he gained after he caught the pass. From my observation, Jerry Rice trained harder and more skillfully than other athletes.  Jerry Rice brought winning performance to every game he played.

Listen to Other People

Business professionals can do a better job for their company by identifying those small details that turn mediocre projects into hugely successful projects. They do the same tasks every else does and achieve greater results than anyone else, often because of their getting input from people around them.  These people develop a team mentality that tells them when to act or when to set a finished product aside and return to it when they have a fresh perspective.

These people build companies like Apple, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, and so on across the spectrum.

Do One More Task

When you finish your work before the end of the day, do at least one more task before leaving work.  It is easy to sit around or leave early.  By starting and completing one more task on these days, you will find that your production can rise dramatically.  If you add and complete one extra task per week, you will complete fifty more tasks over the course of the year.  Your company will benefit.  Your value to your company will grow.

Read

Regularly read articles and books about your job and your goals.  Nearly every job continues to evolve.  Many jobs disappear entirely. New information and tools become available to make job performance easier and make you more marketable.  Take advantage of this information to grow in professional value and for personal enrichment.

See Solutions not Problems

Everyone has problems.  Everyone encounters obstacles.  It is easy to give up or procrastinate instead of acting on these obstacles.  In creating solutions, you can develop effective, often new ways of dealing with these obstacles.

As you create solutions, look for ways to help other people use your solutions.  People have founded companies based on providing products and services to overcome common obstacles.   If you can sell the solutions you have developed in overcoming obstacles, you have a business.

Build Your Network

Continue to build your network of friends and mentors.   One of the more interesting qualities of my son is that he has multiple circles of friends.  The people in each of these circles are people he has met at different times and in different settings.  Some of these friends are from high school classes. Other friends come from his sports activities.  Additionally, he has friends from college and his career.

Since graduating from college, he has met these people from different circles to pick up new hobbies and to travel.  He has traveled to Sweden, Peru, and Thailand to meet with friends he has met over the years.  You may also find that having new circles of friends can help you develop new and valuable career ideas and solutions for Winning Performance.

Set Goals

Continue to set goals.  Goal setting can have a subconscious power to drive your actions even when you are not working directly from a daily plan.  Additionally, having goals can give you a sense of purpose and a feeling of a richer quality of life.  Rather than focusing on the ruts of your life, you can focus on your goals and how to move toward them.  Goals lead to Winning Performance.

Anger Prevention: How Small Steps Can Help You Decompress

Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Success

Anger Prevention: Anger is a normal feeling when we have experiences that threaten our beliefs or possessions. We can learn skills that give us a choice in the way we respond to that feeling.

Anger Prevention: Different Triggers for Different People

We all have individual triggers.  I say individual triggers, because different things create different feelings and different responses in different people.

For example, heights frighten some people. For other people, heights are thrilling.  Furthermore, the amount that people feel fearful or thrilled varies from person to person.

In the case of bungy jumping, some people are fearful of leaping off a high place to the extent that they cannot even walk out to point where other people jump with glee.  Between these extremes are people who have more intense or less intense feelings about jumping off high places.

How Powerful are Triggers?

When triggered, we experience the impulse to act.

Emotions are not thoughts.  And, under some circumstances, our emotions can fire faster than our ability to think before acting. For example, two people see a person fall.  One laughs.  Another one winces.

Neither person thought about how they would respond to what they are seeing.  Instead, they are experiencing feeling in their unconscious mind.

Becoming Smart to Avoid Triggers

The first step in anger management is recognizing sources that create patterns in the emotions governing our thoughts.  These patterns are circumstances that increase the likelihood that we will respond emotionally rather than mentally. However, we can become smart to avoid triggers.

When we recognize these patterns, we can make changes in our behavior that affect our ability to deal with stress.

For example, in rush-hour traffic on the freeways, there are miles of cars.  The way that each driver experiences the drive varies from calm awareness to rage.

Rage can lead to dangerous actions.  If we recognize the patterns of behavior that precede the rage, we can change that pattern.  For example, caffeine, hunger, fatigue, and starting late increase anxiety before we even get on the road.

Additionally, anxiety can press us to try to drive faster than the flow of traffic.  When we become frustrated with drivers who slow us down, our anxiety increases further.

The solution is to eliminate or change our emotions before we get on the road. Before dashing out the door, we take a break to relax.  In other cases, such as making appointments, we can leave early.  Additionally, we can eliminate caffeine or eat a light snack to reduce intense feelings that come from pressures of being on the highway. 

Once we start our drive, we can decide to be part of the flow of traffic and not an intimidating threat to our own safety and the safety of others.

Conclusion

It is not always easy to overcome anger.  However, it is smart to take action to prevent the anger in the first place.