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I have been part of a Toastmasters club for a few month to practice my speaking skills but even more importantly, to help me with my reflection process as it forces me to create short speeches and therefore to clarify my thoughts on certain topics.

2 weeks ago, I participated to the Prague Business Toastmasters’ contest in the “Speech Evaluation” category, where contestants evaluate the same speech and get evaluated on their own performance.

I am usually good at prepared speeches, especially because I have time to structure the speech and can rehearse a lot. The Evaluation contest is more challenging to me because you only have 5min at the end of the speech to gather your observations and thoughts, structure and memorize them and then deliver a 3min speech right away, without your notes.

As I was the first contestant to go, I didn’t have time to rehearse in my head at all. I wasn’t even done with structuring my thoughts when I was called. That’s when I decided to trust myself and commit to my speech, like I suggested in a recent snowboard story. And I am pleased to say that I didn’t crash and ended 2^nd, qualifying for the next level contest. That was a great reminder that I, and we all, can show up not 100% ready and still perform.

But I wanted to share 3 take aways that I believe can be useful to everyone in any area:

• The Power of being an Evaluator:
  • Just like you learn best when you teach, you learn best when you evaluate. It really forces you to pay attention, to look for what works and what doesn’t work or could be improved, and to get out of judgment since when you evaluate, you want to be as objective as you can. And it gives you some ideas on what you can do differently yourself.
  • Evaluating others gives you confidence because it puts you in the expert shoes, even when you don’t consider yourself an expert. It makes you realize that you have some value to provide no matter what your level is.

• The Power of “the evaluator being evaluated”  : Seeing an evaluator being evaluated turns things upside down. It breaks the dynamic of a one way feedback and the belief that those who evaluate have everything figured out and know it all. Think about it in other areas. There is power for employees in seeing their leader receiving some feedback and working on their own stuff, at any level.  There is power for a kid in seeing their parents open to feedback and working on how to be a better parent or partner. This helps keep the ego in check for those who evaluate and normalizes the process of feedback for those who receive it.

Here is what you can practice:

• Whatever you want to develop in your job, business, sport, or life, wherever you want to grow, especially if you want to grow your confidence, put yourself in a position to evaluate others and provide feedback. This will boost your skills and your confidence.

• Ask for feedback on the feedback you provide (from the person you are giving it to or from others). This will help you become better at it.

• If you are a leader, share the feedback you receive with those you lead. This will create more trust and help them better receive your feedback.

For those in Prague who are interested, the area contest will be on April 3^rd at the Venue of Prague Speakers Club, i.e. Institute of Chemical Technology (VŠCHT), Technická 1903/03, Building B. It’s an opportunity to hear inspiring speeches and evaluations, and you are welcome.

Take care,

I am an experiential learner. And I love real world metaphors.
 

My 15 years old son illustrated one last week during our winter break when we were discussing about how to do what looks to me like crazy snowboard jumps.
 
He said: “you have to go fast and far enough to reach the landing slope and not crash in the middle flat zone”
 
I thought this was such a great example of the importance to commit and not do things in halves.
 
If you let the fear or doubts take control, you will put on the brakes, not get enough momentum and crash in the flat zone.
 
It’s a matter of conviction, it’s a matter of energy.
 
It’s in the head and in the body.
 
And it’s the same in life.
 
Many leaders, entrepreneurs, coaches, athletes doubt their value, their worth, their ability, and these doubts act like brakes that have them crash in their prospecting and enrollment conversations, in their important speech, in following through with their new exciting project, in their athletic performance.
 
Of course you have to know what you are doing. You also have to go step by step (my son started with small bumps, then medium size ones, then the big ones). And you have to manage your ego. it’s OK to renounce if you are not ready yet.
 
But if you decide to go, fully commit, from an empowered place.
 
Find the sweet spot where fear maintains you focused and vigilant, but don’t hold you back.
 
If you want to enroll people in your vision, fully commit to it, embody it, don’t let the doubts and fear of what people will think blur your message.
 
If you are delivering a speech, fully commit to it, get out of your head, speak from your heart.
 
If you want to raise your fees, fully commit to it, own it, don’t be hesitant or back pedal.
 
If you want to perform in sport, fully commit to your race, your game, your fight, and don’t let negative thoughts get in the way.
 
It’s a matter of conviction, it’s a matter of energy.
 
It’s in the head and in the body.
 
Are you bringing the energy of commitment, or the energy of fear?
 
Bonus: Next time I will do something new and scary, I will repeat to myself the other thing my son said: The first one is scary, then it’s fun 😊.
 
Take care
 

IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.

A common expression, which may not have the impact you wish.

In a coaching session, a client used that expression to speak about a different perspective his manager was pushing. My client was trying to explain his vision to his boss but was only getting a defensive reaction.

What is often getting in the way of closing a vision gap, or a perspective gap, is the invisible debate that is happening underneath, at a value system level.

Because our perspectives are directly derived from our value system, when confronting different perspectives, the underlying confrontation is about our values.

An the direct consequence of valuing certain things, is that we implicitly don’t value (or value less) other things, and we unconsciously consider that our values are better, as opposed to just different. It is ingrained in the word “value” itself.

Freedom, Adventure, Reliability, Integrity, Impact, Challenge, Comfort, Fun, Connection, Efficiency, Discovery, Working alone, Working with others, Well-being, Growth, Creation, Risk taking, Security, Decision making, Reflection, Competition, Peace, etc…

You can see how some values may support one another, how some may be relatively independent, how some may even be contradictory, and how you may consider some “better” than others.

If I value independence and autonomy, I might resist options with a lot of control. If I value efficiency and making projects fly, I might not be as excited to take on a project where the main goal will be to explore new avenues, gather data, but with a low probability that the project takes off.

Now the difficulty is that when we put ahead what is important to us, we may unconsciously imply that what is important to the other person is worth less, which can trigger a defensive reaction.

So it is important to make sure that the other person doesn’t feel judged in their value system when confronting different perspectives.

Saying “It doesn’t make sense” makes the other person wrong.

Saying “It doesn’t make sense to me”, is better because you take ownership of your perspective instead of presenting it as the truth. But it still makes the other person’s perspective, and therefore their values, less than yours, as opposed to just different.

So, the first step is to recognize that the other person’s value system is just different, not worth less than yours. Know the other person and see if you can make sense of their perspective through their value system. It doesn’t mean you need to agree, just to respect it.

Then make sure you convey that message. Show that you know the other person and that you honor their perspective and values.

You can do this through what you say but even more importantly through who you BE. Your Being is speaking louder than your words, and for your Being to authentically convey the message that you are not considering the other person’s values as less than yours, you first have to really recognize it internally, see step 1.

From there you can get outside of a right/wrong confrontation.

From there you can have an easier, healthier and more constructive conversation to bridge the gap, at work or at home.

Take care

Photo by Petr Slovacek on unsplash

I am currently reading the book “No rules rules” from Reed Hastings, the cofounder of Netflix and Erin Meyer, professor at INSEAD Business School

Although everything might not be strictly applicable to any sort of industries (Netflix is primarily doing some creative work), I love the way they were able to go against the mainstream ideas about management, with a combination of creativity, experimentation, and transparency, to make their organization more agile, more innovative and better able to constantly reinvent itself.

Amongst other interesting things that I’ll share in later posts, here is one that drew my attention:

In 2 different studies referred to in the book to evaluate the impact of bonuses on performance, participants were offered different amount of financial bonuses to perform different tasks.

• When the task were only requiring mechanical skills (like pressing a key as fast as possible), the results were as expected: the higher the bonus, the higher the performance.

• But when the tasks involved cognitive skills (add numbers or fit puzzle pieces into a frame), the results were more surprising: not only the offer of a medium bonus didn’t improve the performance compared to a low bonus, but the offer of a high bonus led to a lower performance.

The reason, they say, is that if you are too much concerned by the outcome of your performance (will you get the bonus?), you are not in a cognitive space where ideas and innovative possibilities live.

I would also add that when you focus too much on the outcome of your performance, you are distracted from what matters in the moment, “here and now”.

This applies to any domain in life:

• As a coach, if you are too focused on your performance, you are not serving the client powerfully.

• As a leader, if you are constantly concerned about your future in your position or in your company, you are not bringing your best self.

• As an athlete:  if you focus too much on winning or on “what if X happen”, you are less focused on the task at hand and your performance decreases.

• As a public speaker : if your attention is too much on what people may think, you disconnect from your audience.

Now it’s important to distinguish focusing on the outcome (which takes some of your focus and mental space away from the task at hand and from creative solutions) from willing an committing to the outcome, which is of course necessary.

The bottom line is :

Commit, Focus on the process, and the Outcome will take care of itself.

Take care,

Cyprien Sarrazin is the new French downhill ski sensation, after he won several races and especially the 2 downhill races in the legendary Kitzbuhel, beating the worldcup leader and reigning champ Marco Odermatt.

While he has a special talent and did work hard to get there, after suffering several injuries and having personal problems, he explained in a recent interview that something clicked for him after working with a psychologist and a mental game coach.

Here are 3 key quotes from the interview that can inspire and propel any athlete, leader or entrepreneur on their path to success:

👉  “I feel good in my life, I ski as I am or I live as I ski, I’m not sure which way to say it”

➡ Our personal life impacts our professional life and our performance (and vice versa). Working on it not only frees us to better perform, it also enables to be fully ALIGNED and AUTHENTIC, leading to achievement and fulfillment with flow.

👉 “You have the right to win, you have the right to be at your place”, her coach told him. Cyprien shared his struggle with impostor syndrome, a struggle many of us can relate to, and how he didn’t authorize himself to win.

➡ It’s an invitation to discard limiting beliefs, and recognize our inherent RIGHT TO SUCCESS and RECOGNITION. The tricky part, which may require some professional support, is that sometimes these limiting beliefs are unconscious (we think we authorize ourself to win/achieve but our subconscious doesn’t).

👉 “I didn’t imagine that working with a psychologist would help me so much”

➡This is a very common reaction and I hear the same with coaching and mental training very often, from leaders to athletes. This is mainly because:

        o Our ego tend to resist the idea of getting help, even more on the mental/emotional aspects (like we should be good at it naturally instead of seeing this as new muscles to practice)

        o You have to EXPERIENCE it to understand and benefit from it, not just read or hear about it.

 So, here is my invitation for you:

 –       INTEGRATE: look at how some areas in your life may impact others and if needed, work on them so you can be fully aligned.

–       BE YOU and DO AS YOU ARE: Lead as you are, coach as you are, create as you are, compete as you are. Get inspired, but let it be uniquely yours. It’s scary, it’s risky, but it’s worth it.

–       YOU HAVE THE RIGHT …. to win, to be successful, and you have your seat at the table.

–       If you feel the desire for some support to BE and OWN WHO YOU ARE, consider working with a trusted professional (a coach, a mentor, a psychologist, a mental game coach, etc…)

Take care and soar to new heights!