Assertive Skills

How to be Assertive by Speaking Fluent Body Language

You've probably heard the expressions before... "Chin up, shoulders back," "Keep your distance," "Feet on the ground," "Pain in the neck." But have you ever wondered how they came about? It all has to do with body language.

Simply put, body language is the unspoken communication we all use in every face-to-face encounter with other human beings. You could say it's more powerful than anything said aloud. Ninety-three per cent of our everyday communications is non-verbal. Only 7% has to do with words at all. You could be telling that other person much more with your body language than you would ever say in words.

Determining and regulating your own body language could well mean the difference when it comes to job interviews, networking meetings, banquets and business dinners, or even a social occasion, such as a date. Even trickier is learning to read and understand the other person's body language.

Being Assertive using Body Language

The right attitude to be able to win friends is to be more assertive. Being assertive is actually just your ability to stand up for yourself, tackle issues face to face, state your own personal views, and defend others when they are being taken advantage of. Contrary to what you may think, being assertive is very much different from being bossy and overbearing.

Assertiveness is actually a good thing. Without it, you inevitably hold back in your career and your personal life. If you are usually compared to another one of your co-workers because the two of you have similar levels of experience and skills, then it is more likely that the more assertive one is rewarded with the promotion.

It is natural that some people are more assertive than others; whether you are part of the former or the latter, it does not matter. What matters is that you get to learn assertive behavior, which ensures you are in the path for new opportunities.

For you to be assertive, you have to keep in mind the effects of positive body language. It is not difficult, actually. You just need to show the person you are talking to that you are attentive and that you truly care about whatever topic it is that you are discussing.

So, you're probably asking yourself, "How do I regulate my body language to be more assertive and give a true representation of how I feel when I interact with others?"

Distance and Angles

Start with the distance between you and the person with whom you're speaking. If you get too close, people feel you're in their face, or too pushy. Too far away, and you could be seen as standoffish.

The angle of your body is a dead giveaway to others. We tend to angle our body towards those people we find friendly or interesting, and angle away from those we feel are cold or unfriendly. Crossing your arms over your chest shows defensiveness. This posture says, "I'm closed off and keeping you out."

Eye Contact

When in a conversation, you have to do everything you can to maintain eye-to-eye contact. It is believed that your eyes are the windows to your soul. Therefore, for you to be able to achieve a heartfelt and productive conversation, you have to show the other party your undivided attention.

You must not, under any circumstances, look around while the other person is talking. You have to always make sure that the person you're talking to sees that you are truly participating in your conversation by listening intently, while maintaining eye-to-eye contact.

Eye contact is one of the most important ways to communicate with others. Looking them in the eye shows respect and interest.

Eye contact is one of the most important ways to communicate with others. Looking them in the eye shows respect and interest. We've all experienced the person who looks constantly at their watch, or seems to be far away and not listening to us. Their body language says, "I have other places to be and other more interesting people to talk to than you." Or the person that you know is not listening to what you're saying, but instead is busy deciding what he/she will say next. Someone whose eyes are downcast, not looking you in the eye could be exhibiting signs of shyness, or it could be deceit. Someone who is lying to you will not look you in the eye.

Head Position

The head position also says a lot. To show confidence or authority, simply keep your head level. This says, "Take me seriously, my words are important." To show friendliness and interest in what the other person is saying, tilt your head slightly to one side or the other.

For you to be able to further express that you are, in fact, approaching your conversation with respect and attention, you may lean forward. Leaning forward is a gesture that shows that you want to hear more and would want the other party to expound on what he or she has just said.

Of course, leaning backward is the opposite. It proves that you are only engaging yourself in the conversation because you have to, and not because you truly care about what is bothering the other party.

You have to prevent yourself from being pushy in your newfound relationship. You must not force your opinions and beliefs on the other party if he or she radically believes otherwise. Just let things be, accept them as how they are.

Mouth Movements

Mouth movements are easy clues to what the other person may be feeling. If they purse their lips or twist them, they could be thinking carefully about what you just said, or disagreeing with you, but holding back comment. You can certainly tell when someone is not pleased.

The Handshake

The handshake is extremely important in the communication with others. No one wants to shake a hand like a wet noodle; at the same time, a handshake needn't be a contest of strength. It's a handshake, not arm wrestling. Many people also don't quite know what to do with their hands after the handshake, especially when meeting someone new. They tend to clasp their hands together, nervously, or fiddle with their jewelry.

Just Be Assertive

Taking the initiative of beginning a conversation, or in stating your views without pushing them to the other party, is the right way for a productive and effective conversation. Do not worry about giving the other party an image that you are overly confident; for being assertive is not only about being confident, it is also about understanding other people and the empathy that you give them.

Indeed, it has been observed and proven that body language has a huge part when it comes to being assertive. Body language shows the other party that you are attentive to what he or she is saying. It is not all about looking good and speaking for yourself. It is also about making other people more comfortable when they talk and express their personal thoughts with you.

Since we're constantly sending out these powerful messages, it's clear we should make an effort to learn more about what our bodies say to others. And learning what others are really saying to us is of paramount importance in our day-to-day communications.

So, chin up, shoulders back, keep your distance, head up, eyes sharp, don't be pushy or standoffish, smile and shake that hand. You too can learn to become more assertive by speaking fluent body language.

Author: Michael Lee

Principles of Feedback

How to Give Difficult Messages and Stay Liked and Respected

Providing advice to people is always tough, but if it’s done right, you not only get the message across, but you build a tighter and stronger relationship with the person.

You may think that feedback is limited to people in positions of power such as managers and parents but everyone often needs to give those difficult messages. This can involve telling your best friend that you do not like their swearing while still being best friends, it can be telling a family member to do their chores around the house without fights starting, or telling someone about an annoying habit that is really getting at you. These are just a few of the many examples where we need to give advice/feedback. The major problem is without the communication skills, if we give advice we’ll stuff it up!

Also, when you do provide advice, you won’t make the same mistakes as you have. As a rule in communication, you are taught not to give advice. I am completely for this rule because when the average person gives advice, they do not have the skills to successfully do so. They give advice with 100% intent on helping the person, but the receiving person sees the message as a form of control.

The person either thinks that you are trying to do things your way or that you think he’s not capable of running his own life. He loses a sense of ownership and control in his life leading to destructive behaviors such as frequent arguing, complaining, and passive aggressive communication (quite actions that are destructive as a way of releasing frustration).

Constructive feedback/advice is one of the only ways for the person to positively accept what you say.

You have to give constructive feedback. That means you have a responsibility to help them develop.

What is Constructive Feedback?

First, I’ll tell you what it’s not.
Constructive feedback is not criticism because it’s all negative and personal.
Constructive feedback is a not personal (e.g. you are lazy), but a targeted response to an individual’s action or behavior (e.g. you did not accomplish the task you agreed to complete) that is intended to help them learn, and is delivered from a place of respect. You see that by saying something about the task and not person-specific, you minimize them receiving it as a personal attack.
Constructive feedback does not shut the person out but rather invites the individual receiving the feedback to shed light, share their perspective, or provide their response (e.g. Do you see it differently?)
Constructive feedback does not blame (e.g. it is your fault the dishes were not done straight away). Again, it is a personal attack on the person and he will either argue with you intensifying the problem, or he will become defensive and try to shift the blame elsewhere.

Why Constructive Advice Works

Constructive advice/feedback enables us to give difficult messages honestly to those we care about.
However, instead of insulting, shutting-down others, or alienating those who receive the advice, and damaging their self esteem and confidence, it motivates them to ask for help and maintains their sense of control while feeling supported and respected. Constructive advice is delivered out of respect and a genuine desire to help the individual.

Principles of Feedback

1. Choose Correct Timing
Praise is most effective when given as soon as possible after the behavior has occurred. Immediate feedback will help to reinforce a correct behavior and make it more likely to happen again.
When an incorrect behavior is not corrected with feedback, the individual will begin to adopt the incorrect behavior more frequently. It is highly desirable to give corrective feedback before the situation occurs again. You want to help the person stop repetitive behaviors.
Do not provide advice directly after the event, but at a later time when the both of you are not experiencing strong emotions. This will keep “the heat” down and enable a clearer conversation to solve the problem.

2. Ask for Self Assessment
Begin by asking the person for self-assessment as it involves them in the feedback process. It is more effective to allow the person to voice opinions before providing your point of view. You are listening and understanding their experience and feelings. You're building on what they do by gathering information from them and then presenting yourself based on their input.
Letting them express themselves first also helps to promote an open atmosphere and dialog.
Self-assessment also helps the person become better at the problem and more independent through self-correction, which in the long-run is more beneficial when a similar problem arises then you nagging and nipping at their backside.
What if the person doesn't want to self-assess?
Most people will be very willing to blurt out their opinion. Their willingness to self-assess also greatly depends on the problem. If the problem is very emotional and hasn't been discussed, then its likely the person would be unwilling to self-assess.
You don't know if they're unwilling to provide their self-assessment until you actually ask for it. If they're unwilling, it's still part of the advice giving process because they then know you're at least trying to not control them through sergeant-like commands and orders. When asking them what they feel about the situation by self-assessing it presents the opportunity for two-way communication.

3. Focus on Specifics
When you focus on a specific correct or incorrect behavior, you remove the feedback from the sphere of personality differences and the other person will be more willing and able to change. By being specific the person does not feel he is being personally attacked and knows the advice is task orientated and not person orientated.

For example, when providing corrective feedback:

Do: “When you did not wash the dishes last night, I came home from work tired at 11pm and did them myself.”
Don’t: “I did the dishes last night because of you” - wrong because you emphasized the person is the problem and not the unwashed dishes. It is person orientated. Make it task/problem orientated as in the ‘do’ example.

When providing praise:

Do: “Thank you for doing the dishes last night. I was able to have a shower straight after work and go to bed.”
Don’t: “Thanks for doing the dishes” - this isn’t too bad but you can see it lacks a true feeling of thankfulness. By being specific, it enhances your appreciation.
An even less desirable compliment is simply saying “thanks for that”. What are you thankful? Be specific! You are encouraging good behavior.

4. Limit Feedback to a Few Important Points
Good communicators identify one or two critical areas and help the person address them one at a time. It is too hard to examine and try to change many aspects of behavior in one go.
Restrict your feedback to one or two important points so that you do not overwhelm the other person with too many things to consider.

5. Provide More Praise than Corrective Advice
Positive reinforcement is one of the strongest factors in bringing about change. Unfortunately a lot of people always focus on the negative.
When you give corrective feedback, remember to point out corrective behaviors first. This is as important as pointing out mistakes and areas that need improvement. Also, always end the conversation on a positive. This can be simple as saying “Thank you (name) for talking this over with me.” This is powerful and will leave the person with lingering thoughts of your advice and honest intention to help them.

As long as feedback is given in a non-judgmental and appropriate way, it is a valuable piece of information for learning and for our continued development as a person.

By Joshua Uebergang

Qualities of High Performing Teams

There are basically five qualities of the most productive work teams that you need to foster throughout the stages of team development. The degree to which you accomplish this before you start working will determine your success as a team leader and the success of the team as a whole.

The first quality is the existence of shared values. You can foster this quality by asking the question, "What are our values?" or, "What do we stand for?" People will contribute the values they consider the most important. As they do, you or someone else can write them on a flipchart. The values will usually be something like: integrity, excellence, quality, caring about people, profitability, and harmony.

The second quality of top teams is shared objectives. It is absolutely essential that everyone takes the time to discuss the actual reason for forming the team and the chief results that are expected of them.

Leaders are those who can see the big picture. They are absolutely clear about what it is they want to accomplish and what it will look like. They have the ability to articulate this vision in the minds and hearts of others and to get everyone, no matter what their background or personality, working together in harmony toward the realization of that vision.

People cannot hit a target they cannot see. Again, even though it may appear time consuming, everyone needs to have ample opportunity to discuss and agree on the ultimate goals desired before work begins. The more thorough the discussion on goals and objectives, the more effective the team will be when it begins working.

The third quality of highly-productive teams is shared activities. Everyone knows what they are supposed to contribute to the achievement of the overall goals and objectives of the team. Everyone also knows what each of the other members is expected to do. All the work that has to be done is clearly divided up among the team members, and everyone knows their role in the process.

The fourth quality of high-performing teams is that the head of the team leads the action. You become the role model for all of the others. You go out in front. You continually look for ways to make it easier for your team members to do their jobs. You accept complete responsibility for the achievement of the overall goal. You start a little earlier, you work a little harder, and you stay a little later. You set careful priorities on your time and you always work on your highest value tasks. You never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. You always put yourself out in front and go to bat for your people in every circumstance. You are a leader because you continually lead.

The fifth and final quality of high-performing teams is that individually and as a group, they continually evaluate their progress toward their goals and values. The are always asking themselves, "How are we doing, and how can we do better?" When they manufacture or sell products in the marketplace, they ask their customers for ongoing feedback and evaluation. They set incredible standards of excellence and they are constantly striving to be better.

Whenever they have problems, misunderstandings, or difficulties within the team, they reexamine their values, their goals, their activities, their assignments, and their responsibilities. They are more concerned with what’s right than with who’s right. They are more concerned with winning than with not losing. High-Performing teams run by excellent leaders, are determined to perform in an excellent fashion. All members know that their ability to work together in harmony and cooperation is the key to the success of every one of them.

Stages Of Team Development - The Role of a Leader

Your ability to negotiate, communicate, influence, and persuade others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you accomplish in life. The most effective men and women in every area are those who can quite competently organize the cooperation and assistance of other people toward the accomplishment of important goals and objectives.

Of course, everyone you meet has different values, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, cultural values, work habits, goals, ambitions, and dreams. Because of this incredible diversity of human resources, it has never been more difficult and yet more necessary for diplomatic leaders to emerge and form these people into high-performing teams.

Fortunately, leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then you become proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. As a leader, you combine your personal competencies with the competencies of a variety of others into a smoothly functioning team that can out-play and out-perform all its competitors.

When you become a team leader, even if your team only consists of one other person, you must immediately develop a whole new set of leadership skills. In order to determine what these skills are, you need to consider the genesis of high-performing teams.

Teams generally go through four phases as they evolve toward high performance. These stages are called forming, storming, norming, and performing.

The forming stage is very important, perhaps even critical, to the success of the team. Your ability to select the proper team members in order to accomplish a particular task—personal or business—is the mark of the superior leader. If you select the wrong people in the first place, it becomes almost impossible afterward to build a winning team, just as it would be impossible to win athletic championships with unskilled or ill-suited players.

In the forming stage, the team members come together and begin to get a feeling for each other. There will be a good deal of discussion, argument, disagreement, personal expression of likes and dislikes, and the forming of friendly alliances between team members.

This stage, especially the discussions and conversations that take place, may seem time consuming, but it is absolutely indispensable to the development of a unified group of people that you can lead. One of the most important qualities of a leader is that of patience. And patience is never more necessary than when you are going through the early stages of assembling your team.

The second stage of team development is called storming. Storming is a shortened form of the word "brainstorming." It is during this stage when the group, whose members are now comfortable with each other, begins the hard work of setting goals and deadlines, dividing up the tasks, and getting on with the job. During the storming phase, people learn about the contributions that each member can make to achieve the purposes of the team.

The third stage of team development is called norming. This is where norms and standards are established among the team members so that everyone feels secure and confident in his or her place. All members know what is expected and how it is to be measured. And all members are aware of the responsibilities and obligations that they have, not only to the job, but to the each other as well. Your ability as a leader to promote the norming process is critical to the success of the team.

The fourth stage of team development is performing. In the final analysis, your ability to get results is all that really matters. Your lifestyle, your rate of promotion and level of rewards, and your respect and esteem among your co-workers and bosses will all be determined by your ability to perform and to get others to perform.

The wonderful thing about becoming a leader in your work and personal life is that you can practice the skills of influencing and persuading others toward a common objective. You can promote the principles of excellent teamwork by establishing your values and goals, determining your activities, and then leading the action. And you can improve yourself by continually evaluating your performance against your standards.

Effective Public Speaking

Begin with something to get the attention of the audience
This might be a startling statement, statistic, or your own story. Listeners pay close attention when a person begins with, "Two weeks ago as I was driving to work a car pulled out in front of me..." You could begin with a current event: "You might have read in the paper this morning about the flood that..."

A question is another way to make people listen. "How many of you feel our society spends too much on medical care?" might be a way to begin a presentation about curbing costs. Whatever technique you use, when you grab the attention of the audience you are on your way to a successful speech.

Second, be energetic in delivery
Speak with variety in your voice. Slow down for a dramatic point and speed up to show excitement. Pause occasionally for effect. Don't just stand behind the lectern, but move a step away to make a point. When you are encouraging your audience, take a step toward them.

Gesture to show how big or wide or tall or small an object is that you are describing. Demonstrate how something works or looks or moves as you tell about it. Show facial expression as you speak. Smile when talking about something pleasant and let your face show other emotions as you tell about an event or activity. Whatever your movements, they should have purpose.

Structure your speech
Don't have more than two or three main points, and preview in the beginning what those points will be.

With each point, have two or three pieces of support, such as examples, definitions, testimony, or statistics. Visual aids are important when you want your audience to understand a process or concept or understand a financial goal. Line graphs are best for trends. Bar graphs are best for comparisons and pie graphs are best for showing distribution of percentages.

Tie your points together with transitions. These could be signposts such as "First," "Second," or "Finally." Use an internal summary by simply including the point you just made and telling what you plan to talk about next. "Now that we have talked about structure, let's move on to the use of stories," would be an example.

When you have an introduction, two or three main points with support for each, appropriate transitions, and a conclusion, you will have your speech organized in a way that the audience can follow you easily.

Tell your own story somewhere in the presentation
This applies especially in a technical presentation. Include a personal experience that connects to your speech content, and the audience will connect with you. You want to help the audience link emotionally with what you are talking about, and the personal experience does that.

With almost any topic you might choose, you have at least one "war story" to relate to the topic. When you tell the story, simply start at the beginning and move chronologically through the narrative, including answers to the "W" questions: "Who," "What," "When," "Why," and "Where."

With almost any topic have at least one 'war story' to relate to the topic.

To add interest and understanding to your speech, include a visual aid. A visual aid could be an object, a flip chart, a PowerPoint presentation, overhead projector slides, or a dry erase board. Whatever visual you are using, make sure everyone can see it. The best way to insure this is to put the visual where you will be speaking, and then find the seat farthest from it and determine if you can read the visual from that seat.

Introduce the visual properly rather than simply throwing it at your audience; explain what the visual will do before you unveil it. Don't allow the visual to become a silent demonstration.

Keep talking as you show the visual. You are still the main event and your visual is an aid. Look at your audience, not your visual. When the visual is not in use, hide it from the audience. Humans are a curious lot, tending to keep looking at the object and losing track of the speaker-you!

If you are delivering a persuasive speech, in addition to your own stories include testimony of experts whom the audience respects and whose views reinforce your points. Add a key statistic when possible to show the seriousness of what you are discussing. By using stories, testimony, and statistics in your persuasive talk, you add depth to your evidence.

Look at the audience as you speak
If it is a small audience, you can look at each person in a short period of time. If it is a large audience, look at the audience in small "clumps" and move from one clump to another.

One way to insure good eye contact is to look at your audience before you start to speak. Go to the lectern and pause, smile, look at the audience, and then speak. This will help you maintain good eye contact throughout your presentation as well as commanding immediate attention.

One of the ways to have consistently good eye contact is not to read your speech. Use note cards that have key words on them. The word or phrase should trigger the thought in your mind and then you can speak it. If you are including a quotation or complex statistics, reading from your note card actually lends credibility. If you write out your speech you will tend to read it and lose eye contact with the audience, as well as not being as enthusiastic in delivery as when you speak from note cards.

Structure your speech
Include a "wow" factor in your speech. Something in your speech should make your audience think, "Wow!" It could be a story, a dramatic point, an unusual statistic, or an effective visual that helps the audience understand immediately.

With a "wow" factor, you then have something to look forward to in the speech that you know will have an impact on your audience. You'll become a more enthusiastic speaker because the "wow" factor will get you as well as your audience pumped for the speech.

Consider using a touch of humor in your speech
Humor will help you to be perceived as an amiable person, and it is hard for people to disagree or be bored if they are smiling at you.

Until you have lots of experience, keep your humor short. Perhaps inject a one-liner or a quotation. Yogi Berra said a lot of funny things. "You can observe a lot just by watching" for example. Tell a short embarrassing moment in your life that you might have thought not funny at the time. Now that you can laugh at the experience, you understand the old adage, "Humor is simply tragedy separated by time and space."

Don't poke fun at your audience; you should be the object of any shortcoming, showing that you can laugh at yourself. Avoid long stories or jokes. Even seasoned speakers know that funny stories soon become unfunny if they go on too long. Probably the least risky use of humor is a cartoon. The cartoon is separate from you and if people don't laugh, you don't feel responsible. (Be sure to secure permission to use it.)

Finally, leave the audience with something to think about
People remember best what you say last. You might summarize your main points, or you might complete the statement, "What I want you to do as a result of this presentation is..." But beyond that, make your last words a thought to ponder. For example, I might end a speech on becoming a better speaker with "As Cicero said centuries ago, 'The skill to do comes with the doing.'"

A more modern guide to effective public speaking was penned by some unknown sage: "Know your stuff. Know whom you are stuffing. Know when they are stuffed."

Motivation

How to think like Champions

“Losers say they might and winners say they will. It’s as simple as that. Of course, attitude has a lot to do with winning and life success”.

Be Outcome Oriented
Nothing comes easy in life. If things were easy, then everyone’s life would be blissful. If we want the things that we want in life, then we have to know what we must give up in order to get it. That means we have to get our hands dirty doing the grunt work before we can enjoy the rewards. If we focus solely on the grunt work, we won’t be as motivated as the ultimate reward of completing that job. For example, paying bills causes us pain, but having the bills paid gives us pleasure. Exercise causes us pain (or at least discomfort), but having exercised causes us pleasure. Winners in life are outcome oriented. Instead of focusing on the grunt work which they don’t like, they see the end result of having done that grunt work. It’s that ability which motivates great achievers do accomplish so much more.

Reflect on Your Daily Achievements
At the end of each day, on a piece of paper, your journal, or computer, write down at least five things that you accomplished that day. Review that list and be proud of your achievements. Each morning when you wake up, coach yourself towards achieving small steps that you can write down on your list at the end of each day.

Pick a Role-Model and Get Inspired
All champions do this when they first start out because remember that champions are never born—they are made. They all had role-models that they aspired to be like and the role-models that they chose showed the particular skills or traits that they wanted in themselves. Many of us, however, choose poor role-models or no role-models at all as a result, they aspire to be nothing at all. It goes to show that if you want to be the best at something, then you have to model yourself after the best out there. I suggest that you read inspirational books, magazines, articles, or watch documentaries or interviews with great people. Go and rent inspiring videos that are about human perseverance and stories of success. Role-models also serve the purpose of giving you a blueprint to follow. Remember that the best of the best out there are really no different than you or I, but we can learn what they did to rise above and beyond the rest and then follow in their footsteps down the road that they have already carved.

Build Yourself a Winning Team
No successful professional is ever a one-person accomplishment. Behind every great professional is the multitude of supporting personnel that keeps him in prime shape with the objective of winning. A lot of times, we don’t see that. We only see, for example, two boxers in the ring. While the game ultimately comes down to that particular athlete, it’s their infrastructure that plays a bigger part of their winning or losing a fight. That team includes coaches, specialty trainers, therapists, and an army of other people that we rarely see when they compete.

In order for us to achieve our goals, we too will need a winning team on our side. Be careful of the relationships that we get involved in and make sure that the relationships that we get involved in are synergistic in nature, meaning that we benefit from it. Often, our clients come to us with parasitic relationships where one person (the parasite) feeds off the other person,

whether it be physically, financially and/or emotionally, until that person is just an empty husk of the person they once were. Don’t enter parasitic relationships, just as a professional would not hire an incompetent trainer to be by his side. Your ability to be a winner is directly linked to your ability to choose a winning team.

Make Your Daily Tasks “Idiot Proof”
Mozart was said to be able to create pristine and perfect pieces of music that were note-perfect on his first attempt. Well, God created Mozart and then he must have been falling asleep when he created us because we rarely get anything perfect the first time. We are not the type of people who can simply work on a project that has multiple steps to it because we’ll procrastinate on it until the very end and slap something together the night before it’s due, which if we are lucky, will slightly resemble a finished project. For us to get things done, we need to “stupefy” our tasks and what I mean by that is that we need our tasks to be so no-brainer that we don’t have to think much to get them done. We need concrete and simple “next actions” that we can put ourselves on auto-run and not have to worry about. Procrastination and unrealized goals happen when we know what we want, but we don’t know how to get there. We should take a goal that has many steps to it and break it down as much as we can. Break that goal down until each step can’t be broken down any further. By having very simple actions on our daily task list, it removes the brainwork from the equation and all we have to do is simply DO IT.

Develop a “No Retreat, No Surrender” Attitude
Champions are not the superheroes that we make them out to be. They are in fact regular people just like us. The difference between champions and losers is the fact that when the two groups are faced with adversity and pain, it’s the losers who turn and run away and it’s the winners who push forward. You see, winners have a “No retreat, no surrender” mentality. They burn the bridge behind them and there is no going back. They put 100% of their energy on seeing a goal towards completion, regardless of the pain they might have to endure to get there.

When you decide to put 100% of your focus on a goal, make sure you set in stone and tell yourself that there is simply no other way to get out of it other than by seeing that goal to its completion. There are no if's, and’s or but’s—no excuses at all, you just get it done regardless. Make it a habit to burn the bridges behind you when you set your goals so that you eliminate all your possible ways of retreating.

Celebrate Your Victories
Finally, champions go out and celebrate their victories and so should you. Celebrations are fun and not only that, they also serve to reset your mind so that you can start the whole process of winning over again. But true champions also know that celebration comes after they’ve won the game and not before the game has even started. So celebrate when you achieve your goals and share you achievement with your winning team that made it possible.

The Uncompassionate Leader

The Uncompassionate Leader

As a leader, its your job to delegate responsibility to your subordinates. In the military structure, a subordinate is trained to follow an order without question, or face some pretty stiff consequences. But in the civilian world, people may carry out an order, but do so in protest or with subtle subterfuge in retaliation for that order. Why is that? It’s because emotions intertwine themselves with the order being given which block the path for cooperation.

Why People Hate Orders

One of the fundamental needs that people have is the need for autonomy—to have freedom of choice and control in their lives. When you remove autonomy from a person’s life, conflict will erupt until the balance is restored. Wars happen when the autonomy of a nation or people becomes restricted beyond what is deemed acceptable. The same holds true for individuals. As a leader, issuing orders to a subordinate restricts their autonomy in their life, even if they are getting paid to do it. Remember that whether the situation is professional or personal, emotions are never separate from the problem or the objective. Both the problem and the emotions need to be dealt with separately.

The Uncompassionate Leader—“Get it Done Now!!”

I’ve worked for several supervisors who had the military mentality. They issue an order and they expect it to be done without complaint or delay. The uncompassionate leader who issues commands and orders is only looking at the problem and the solution. They are making the mistake of accounting for the emotional-factor into the equation. It’s just like if you were planning for a vacation trip and forgot to factor in your food costs. Dealing with the emotions of your employees is a critical part in getting an order done right.

Give Them Back Their Autonomy—Their Choice

Instead of barking out orders, try empowering your employees by giving them back their ability to make choices for themselves. How can you accomplish this? Simple. Instead of making a command, ask questions instead. Ask them for their help, rather than telling them what to do. This works because by asking the employee for their help, you subconsciously restore the balance of power to them. They have the option of saying, “No, I won’t help,” but realistically they will never say this because that would endanger their ability to put food on the table. Also people are inclined to help because it makes them feel good and it increases the bond between both the asker and the provider of that help. The compassionate leader will always use questions instead of barking out orders.