“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as your are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life.” -Henry David Thoreau

Being the outcome driven person that I am doesn’t leave me lots of time for contemplation of my navel. However, yes to answer the question, I do have a therapist that I see weekly. While I am not unique or alone in this, it’s funny how some people smile or roll their eyes when I mentioned something that I learned “in therapy.” Besides, it’s great to have someone that can look at me dispassionately for who I am and help me make decisions based on that viewpoint; a lot like I do on behalf of my clients. Rarely have I ever had a client in 12 years of business who can step back and see their business or product the way an “outsider” can. It’s a “forest and trees” kind of mentality.

The point of this being, that at the forty minute mark of almost each session, I look at my doctor and say, “O.K. what’s the takeaway here? What did my fee just buy me?”

Here’s what it got me last week:

• You have to be the visionary and you have to sell it. You need to both communicate and create buy-in for the future vision of your business. How will someone, a department, a company, one person, be better off for having bought in to this vision? Figure that out, then sell, sell, sell.
• Get visible. Everyday ask yourself, “how can I be more visible?” Can you walk the floor of a plant or stop in at a meeting? Swoop down from your perch and be visible and vocal. Ask a specific question and then go back to what you were doing.
• Follow the “even though” rule. The “even though” rule says that nothing that follows the words “even though” changes what came before them. You might be tempted to say “Do I have to be present even though I have bad news?” The answer is YES! You might ask, “Do these rules apply even though we are a small company? Even though we are a family owned company?” The words “even though” do not change any of the basic tenants of leadership.
• Protect your message. You have a great plan, a vision, even an answer. That’s nice but not enough. You need to protect your message. If you had a Rolex watch would you leave it in your parking lot? Out in the rain? No, you would protect it. Your message has value and you protect it by communicating this message in a way that allows you and your company to move forward.
• Speak with clarity. I always get a big laugh in a meeting or when speaking when I say, “I speak at the third grade, six month level. Because I have found that if I always speak at this level, even college professors can understand what I am saying.” How do you benchmark clarity? Here’s a practical way to test it. Can you answer a question in the time it takes to walk across a room? Really, try it. Stand up. Then walk and answer in the time it takes to walk across a room. The room may be small or large, but if you answer in the time it takes to walk across a football field, that is not clarity.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “It is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.” PASSION and ACTION at our time of peril…or be judged that we have not lived.

Sometimes we can’t see the vision or communicate the message— that’s when we have to seek out the help of others to get us back on track. Think of the complexities of your business (or your life) today compared to a year or two ago. If you’re like me, it’s a rollercoaster ride every day. Sometimes we lose our leadership position or we allow someone else to momentarily assume our power. Think about the five points above and reclaim what’s recently been taken from you.

Tags: healing, inspirational, live for today, therapy

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 7:18 am and is filed under Branding, Great Ideas, Highly Recommended, My Life on the MPv2 List. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.