Seth Saunders Leadership, Learning, Value

What have you learned?

what have you learned

With 2015 coming to a close and 2016 getting ready to make its presence known it is time for some reflection. Whether you have done this before or have only ever actually thought about doing it, taking some time to reflect can have a number of great benefits. There are numerous ways to reflect upon the year that was but I would like to share one way that you may find useful. It’s all about focusing on what you learned.

See, we may be able to quickly reflect about what happened in 2015 by thinking of key experiences that took place. We may simply think about them for a minute then move on to the next experience. Although this is a good start, what if you took some quality time to really ponder what you learned from those key experiences? Two very important things happen, first you document what you have learned which helps to reinforce those items and second, you now have the opportunity to set some solid goals for 2016 based on those learning’s.

Click on the image below to see a helpful tool I created. You can recreate this tool any way you want; this is just a simple example.

what have i learned

 

 

As you can see with this example, based on a Key Learning from 2015 I was able to establish a goal for 2016. It is important not to overwhelm yourself by listing tons of learnings and/or goals. You may actually go through a couple of iterations to help you narrow down and focus on those experiences that provided the greatest learnings for you. Then you can dial in on the 1 to 3 goals for 2016.

Leaders have the ability to learn from every experience. The best leaders have the ability to take those learning’s and make both themselves and those they lead better. Ironically, heroes are those that are always learning from their experiences, it makes them more effective in the future as they are in situations that require them to act and react quickly.

You are a hero and a leader. I have said it before but you don’t need a title to be a leader and most people will not be called a hero even though do heroic things. There are people around you watching what you do and what you say whether you notice it or not. You have the ability to make a positive impact every day on others. I hope you will take some time to identify what you learned in 2015 to make 2016 even better.

Here is to each of you, my heroes, to an awesome and successful 2016.

Seth

Hero boss [Converted]-01

Seth Saunders Inspirational

Favorite Quote-Courage to show your dreams

When is the last time you showed or shared your dreams with someone else? What was it about the dream or the person you had trust in that made you want to share? If you have not share your dreams or at least recently, why not? What is holding you back from sharing what it is you want most?

There is no question that sharing our dreams and goals with others takes courage. Sure it is easy to say to a friend, “I dream of winning the lottery” but if we areeq-best-quote-by-erma-bombeck-it-takes-a-lot-of-courage-to-show-your-d-1395402571gk84n being honest, this is an empty dream. See the truth is, just like goals, in order for dreams to become a reality it takes action. To just dream does not cost anything, we can all dream but only when we take the steps necessary will those dreams become real. And that is one of the main reasons that it takes courage to share our real dreams. Sharing real dreams with others means that we will need to take action. The act of taking action has two potential results; success or failure. As humans, we do not want or enjoy failure. The fear of failure can often paralyze us to the point of not having the courage to share our dreams with others.

When we have the courage to share our dreams with those we trust, we take the most important step in making our dreams become a reality. For some there may even be a feeling of relief when they share their dreams as they now can actually do something to make it happen. Courage has the potential to be one of the greatest attributes we can develop throughout our lives. See courage is the opposite of fear.

As you work towards replacing the fear of failure with the courage to succeed, amazing things can happen. In fact, our dreams can become our reality. Take the time to first identify what your real dreams are and then identify a couple of close people you feel will encourage, support and push you to achieve those dreams. Doing these two things can ignite within you the courage to share.

You deserve to see your dreams come to life. Have the courage to make it happen.

Seth Saunders Learning

The Stress to Impress

The Stress to Impress

 If you haven’t noticed, we live in a stressful world. No matter what your current situation might be, stress is no doubt something that influences you in some way. The world continues to try and control so much of what we do, who we are and where we go. Because of that we find ourselves trying to impress others. Maybe its your friends, family, teachers, neighbors, community, co-workers or boss.

As a leader, you cannot afford to lead with the only goal in mind of impressing. If you do, you will create unnecessary stress that can often lead to failure. I am not saying that you don’t want to impress your boss or your team but you have to understand how and why you want to impress them. The problem is that there is often a selfish type of feel that comes when one is trying to impress. Although we try hard to convince ourselves we are trying to impress the other person, at the end of the day we are really just trying to impress ourselves because we are looking for acceptance and validation.

It is important that we find ways to have others see that we are of value and that we can achieve results. This will often lead to impressing others but we need to be sure we are properly defining what our goals are. A good leader has the ability to know how to define these goals and what will happen when they achieve their goals. If your boss is impressed, what a great added benefit. If your team is impressed and it leads them to wanting to work harder to achieve their goals, nice. The key is that you are leading for the right reasons. Selfish leaders have a very short shelf life.

It is important to remember this concept of stressing to impress outside of the office as well. There is a statement I have heard many times and it goes like this, “trying to keep with the Jones’s.” The significance of this statement is saying that people often see their neighbor come home with a new boat so they go buy a boat. Then that same neighbor comes home with new snowmobiles so they go buy snowmobiles. They are not really concerned if they can afford this stuff, they are just trying to keep so they can continue to impress others. We see this phenomenon with teenagers and the pressures they endure daily at school. We see this with our family, friends almost any part of our life. What ultimately happens is that the stress of trying to impress leads to some unpleasant outcomes. I have seen this happen many times to people who I am close with. One thing I do know, it never has a happy ending.

As a leader you should not try and keep up with others just to try and impress others, including your boss. It is just too stressful to keep up and you will become very ineffective. What you need to do is be sure you continue to build your strengths and control your weaknesses, leaders that can do that are impressive in my eyes.

Learn to manage your stress to impress and you will achieve great things, inside and outside the office.

 Heroes don’t stress but often impress.