Category: Business Development

During the summer, my wife and I took our 3 kids on our 1^st family Via Ferrata in the French Alpes (a Via Ferrata is way to climb a cliff with a line to which you are attached all along for your safety, with some rungs into the wall in the difficult pathways, and it can be pretty impressive and physically challenging).  Our kids had a lot of fun … and also had to practice dealing with their fear, as did I (as much as I enjoy these activities, I still have some fear when hung into the void and only secured by a small carabiner…).

So, how do you deal with fear? You can look away from it or you can look at it.

Looking away from fear is what most of us do automatically. It is not wrong. When you are climbing a cliff, you are told to not look down. If you start feeling really scared, you’d better look up and focus on where you want to go as opposed to where you don’t want to fall. And that can definitely help you get out of it. However, it is often automatic (like when I was a kid and used to rush back from the dark scary basement after getting some food), therefore disabling your capacity to choose, and it leaves you with an unpleasant experience, which has you avoid it which will in turn reinforces the fear the next time you do it. It’s a vicious cycle. When that happens in areas of your life where you want to progress, you can see how this is getting in your way.

However, there is another way: you can look at Fear. You can look down in the via ferrata, take a deep breathe, and notice what you feel in your body, what sensations are there and just stay with it first, not doing anything but observe. What’s available with this is to see the fear dissolve and have you step into a state where fear is still there but you are not afraid anymore. This sounds counter intuitive but it only means that you still have body sensations but you are not afraid of staying there with them. You can then move forward with a sense of least resistance. Sometimes, you may even switch to enjoying it and feeling a sense of plenitude (that was my case when I practiced taking the time to look down before skydiving or bungee jumping instead of looking away from it). When you practice looking at fear, you learn to discover that you can be OK with this feeling (because in the end it’s no more than a feeling), it gives you a different experience that is less likely to turn you off, it builds your confidence and it encourages you to face more situation like this in life.

What’s challenging in this is that it requires to let go of control. But it’s deceptive. Our automatics are in a sense a way to keep us in control but it usually ends up not really being in control (ask my parents if I looked in control when as a kid, I was running all along the yard chased by wasps 😊). On the other end when, in the moment we decide to look at our fear, we let go of control, we actually get it back with a calmer and better decision-making ability.

Have you heard of the Fight or Flight reaction created by your amygdala in the primitive brain when facing a danger or when getting scared?  That’s great when you are attacked by a tiger or your life is in danger, less when you are just dealing with everyday life. Looking away from Fear will have you flight (run away as quick as you can) or fight (moving forward despite the fear but with a sense of push through and unpleasant effort that doesn’t want you to do this again).  When you are looking at Fear, you are offering yourself another option which I would call Flow in order to fit in the “F” theme. You are moving forward on a path of least resistance. Some mention the possibility to Freeze, when you just can’t do anything and stay still. This is actually be a great place to choose whether you want to Fight, Flight, or Flow.

Eventually, how does that apply to leadership and life?

When you are triggered in a conversation at work, when you are scared to speak in front of a board of directors, or in front of a new team when stepping into a new position, when Fear is preventing you from moving forward with your business (getting new, higher paying clients, creating fun projects, etc…), when you are nervous before a competition, see if you can notice the fear. Instead of looking away from it (reacting, shutting down, distracting yourself, finding reasons for which you can’t do what you want, etc…), see if you can embrace the fear. Notice what you feel in your body. You don’t have to fix anything, or push through, just feel what is there and observe. See if you can stay 1% more. Notice what’s available for you.

Looking away from fear is not wrong and can be useful sometimes. And, there is an opportunity to practice looking at fear, as a way to expand our range, notice what’s available, how this can help us be more at choice and move forward toward a more accomplished and fulfilled leadership and life, and in the end grow as a human being.

What’s scary for you at the moment? Can you stay 1% more with the feeling it brings and notice what’s available there?

Take care,

Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

COACHING IS ABOUT BOTH:

Awareness and Action

Process and Outcome

Mean and End

Journey and Destination

Movement and Stillness

Doing and Being

Future and Present

Bigger LIFE and daily life

Big Dreams and tiny steps

Achievement and the Experience while achieving

The thing and our relationship to the thing

Getting out of the way and Being on the way

Breakdowns and Breakthroughs

Heart and Edge

Detachment and Stand

What is and What could be

POSSIBILITY and CHOICE

With Love,

“Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.’

The other creatures laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!’

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath, did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried ‘See, a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!’

And the one carried in the current said, ‘I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.’

But they cried the more, ‘Saviour!’, all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.”

— From Illusions, by Richard Bach

What are you clinging to?

What if you dared let go?

Take care,

 

 

 

Photo by Matt Duncan on Unsplash

“What’s getting in the way?” is a common question that can help identify what is preventing us to bridge the gap between where we are in our life, career or in our business and where we would like to be. While this question is very useful to identify roadblocks, internal limiting beliefs, and move more efficiently toward our goals, it shouldn’t hide the fact that, primarily, what’s in the way is … THE WAY.

To get where we want, we have to travel on the way. We might be able to run, find ideas and support to go even faster but we still have to travel on the way, we can’t just teleport directly there.

I am not so much pointing to the motivation part of this, like “creating something takes time” or “don’t give up, you just have to continue moving forward”.

I am pointing to the transformation part of it.  No one else can take us there. We need the internal process and sometime struggle that go along the way to create the internal transformation that will allow us to see what we couldn’t see, to do what we couldn’t’ do, and to become who we need to be to eventually move closer to our end game.

Receiving the information from someone who has already been there is not enough. We have to experience our own journey, go through the ups and downs, be scared and still move forward, enjoy the landscape, fall into holes, go sidetrack, get back on the way, and FEEL every part of it.

THE WAY can be frustrating (“If only I had understood this before…”). It’s just human.

As tempting as it can be to want to jump straight to the destination (“Just tell me how to do!”), there is a minimum distance to travel and a minimum transformation to happen to get there.

Because, intrinsically, what’ in the way IS THE WAY.

Take care,

Photo by Sammie Vasquez on Unsplash

In one of my recent coaching sessions with a client, the fact that he was lacking confidence showed up. My initial reflex was to think “how can we build up his confidence?”, but I knew this would not make a real difference, this was not impactful coaching.

And then I remembered a phrase I read last week. I had probably heard that quote or a similar one in the past, but either I had overlooked it (meaning I had understood it intellectually/conceptually but it hadn’t clicked deeply and I had moved on without doing anything about it), either I had had an insight but then it had gone back into my own blind spots again (the second tricky part of blind spots is that after they became visible, they can actually become invisible again…). Last week, for some reason, it clicked.

You don’t need a lot of confidence; you need a little act of courage.

In any situation where you feel you lack confidence, you can work on building your confidence, with some positive affirmations or by listing all your past successes and that might be helpful, but will probably be limited (by the way for this to be the most efficient, you need to really FEEL (not think) that confidence deep inside).

Or you can shift your entire perspective of the situation and realize that you actually don’t need more confidence to take action. Instead, you can just act, and this will require some courage. It will feel scary and uncomfortable in the moment, which is why aiming at a little act of courage can help. This will be way more effective than to try to convince yourself that you are ready and confident enough (because chances are that you will never be), and, as a result, guess what, this will build your confidence.

It’s usually quicker and more efficient to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting, but for overthinking/overpreparing people like me, it’s not natural and more challenging. That’s why I get some support from my own coach and why I’m also good at helping people like me do the same.

Now you might read this without deeply clicking and that’s OK. Maybe one day, you will, maybe not. The bigger picture here is that it is possible to shift how we see the world and this allows us to move more effectively toward our dreams, one small act of courage at a time. In a sense, that’s what coaching is about.

I’ll leave you with the following questions:

• Where is a lack of confidence holding you back at the moment? What if you didn’t need more confidence but instead a little act of courage? What would that act of courage be?
• And to open up to more possibilities, where else do you get stuck? How could you reframe the situation to move on?

If, maybe counter-intuitively, you think that now is the time to invest in yourself to get unstuck or move more efficiently toward creating the life, business or career you really want, reach out. I have a couple of 1 on 1 spots available. Maybe that’s the little act of courage that would make a difference for you.

Take care,

I love sport and part of my activity is to coach athletes to overcome their mental roadblocks to perform to their full potential. I recently wrote a post to my “sport mental training” community and I thought I would extend this post to leadership in general.

I came across a video (sorry for a lot of you, it is in French) of the speech former San Antonio Spurs basketball player Toni Parker gave to his teammates during the half-time of the semi-final of the Euro in 2005 when France managed to beat Spain for the 1^st time. At half-time, France was down by 14 points. In the locker rooms, Toni Parker, captain and leader of the team, had to find the words to motivate his teammates. “We are playing like if we were afraid, we are not physical enough …I don’t care what happens in the second half and if we lose, but we are going to fight”.

But most importantly, after other words, he eventually said: “Nothing to lose, let’s play. Antoine, if you have a shot, take it, Alexis, if you have a shot, take it”. “And you know what?” he ended saying to the playmaker of the team, “announce plays for Nico, for Bobo … just 1 out of 5 for me … forget about me!”.

France made an amazing come back in the second half and managed to beat Spain.

Not only did Toni Parker motivate his teammates, but he also didn’t let his frustration and ego take the wheel and want to save the whole team on his own.

Instead he trusted his teammates and asked them to forget about him, not because he was afraid and wanted to run away from his responsibility, but because he felt everyone needed to step up. So, by stepping down in a way, he created the space for them to step up, for them to take their responsibility. This is great leadership.

This applies to leadership at work. Great leaders create more leaders, not more followers.

Now this requires Vulnerability and Courage, because it is taking the risk to be seen as weak or escaping one’s responsibility, it is facing the fear of losing one’s leadership role.

It requires Trust. Trust that you are doing the right thing, trust your teammates and that they can step up and save the game.

And it requires to let go of the need to control everything, which is very counter intuitive for most leaders.

In his book Leading with Emotional courage, Peter Bregman says something similar and goes even a step further, by inviting leaders to do something most them fight so hard to avoid: being overwhelm, the ingredient to draw out leadership in others. Here is what Peter Bregman says:

“Leaders like to be in control. They want things to turn out right and feel, often mistakenly, that if they have control over them, they will…. The more control you have over something, the less room there is for others to step into their own leadership.

Designing chaos into a process is the antithesis of what most leaders do. We try to focus on 1 thing, 1 concept, 1 conversation, 1 task. But in real life, in real organizations, nothing happens one thing at a time. And no one can be on top of it all (Evan speaking here: Yes, I know, that sucks to admit that. It is both very obvious and intellectually understandable, and yet, for people like me, the internal pattern is to act as if we could be on top of it all. Take the time to check in how that lands in you).

 If everyone followed their own impulse, stepped into their own leadership, wouldn’t that lead to anarchy? Maybe. It depends on the strength of their organization’s container. How clear is the big arrow, the vision, the values, the culture? If we know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, what’s important to us, and how to operate then there will be trust, focused energy, and abundant, unified leadership. If not, there will be anarchy.

 No matter how much leaders would like to, they just can’t control everything. Trying to control the uncontrollable just makes things worse. People check out. They feel no ownership. They work minimum. And things fall through the cracks.

 Here’s the hard part: leading without controlling. Stepping into your own leadership while leaving space for others to step into their own leadership as well.

So, if you are a leader, what would Toni Parker’s request “Forget about me” look like for you? How can you step into your own leadership while leaving space for others to step into their own leadership as well? By doing so you’ll become a greater leader and your whole team will become better.