Embrace The Fact You’re Going To Give Up. Here’s Why.

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News flash: Technology has made us (more) impatient.

Who hasn’t stood in front of their microwave, waited for an Uber or stood in line for something and shouted, ‘hurry up’. We have become spoiled for choice and we are still not happy.

It seems the faster our access to anything, the faster we seem to believe we should have it. It’s made us lazy and impatient. We’ve become a society of simply giving up because we don’t get it fast enough.

Insta-Life

We have high-speed internet access all the time. We have access to all the world and its secrets in a flash. Yet, we still complain. Why?

You sent a text but the little ball is spinning and suddenly the phone is crap and technology is crap and your life is ruined.

Why do we think that we are owed something?

People seem to want things when they want them without putting in any effort on their end. In a world where everything is continually coming at us faster, perhaps we are just tired of trying to keep up.

The Fear

We likely all know someone who seemingly had it all going on and then just walked away. Maybe a promising music career or a university degree. So the question remains, “why do people bail when it appears they are on the brink of success?”

Well, the fear of success or is it the fear of failure?

Maybe it’s the fear of the unknown, and for many people, it’s easier to simply not ever know the true outcome than face the truth.

The fear of success is real. Many people expect to fail and believe that those in their social and family circle expect it, too. Sadly, it’s easier (and far too common) to fail and say, ‘oh, well. I tried’ than to follow through with something. 

The Success

To finally succeed at something albeit personal or professional should be a celebration. So why do people bail at the last minute? Not only is it often easier, but it’s what we have come to expect of ourselves. True, some people don’t like to celebrate things but that doesn’t mean it should go unnoticed.

The flip to celebration means that your new-found success comes with it new expectations on us. You’ve accomplished something – now what are you going to do? It’s as if the window to acknowledge yourself closes quickly. No matter how you slice it, the fear of what’s next can be too much for people.

There is risk involved when we choose to complete something and the fear of winning or losing can overwhelm some people. The choice for them is to stop just short of the finish line.

Don’t Judge Me

What other people think of us or how they see us has a massive influence on many people. The fear of letting them down can be too much and it may be easier to have people see us fail early on in the venture than later when there is more at stake.

Also, if we are used to having people close to us tell us we are not good enough or we lack the ability, we start to believe it. In a way, we allow them to be proven right when we pull out of our journey, thereby giving them our power. Don’t do this. It undermines your ability while empowering their insecurity of you doing something that they aren’t confident in themselves to take on.

We’re Just Lazy

Fun fact: each generation has had it easier than their parents.

Parents all realize this and want their children to have things they never did. I know I do. When we are given too much too easily, we lose the drive and desire to work for it. Once we hit the real world, we fail quickly because no one is there to just give us want we want.

We also may give up on something because it seems too difficult to even start. Take getting your master’s degree for example – which could arrive DOA due to the overwhelming amount of work and costs involved. It’s just easier to follow a different, easier path.

Far too often, people give up on their own dreams and follow those that someone else wants them to do. Of course, it’s not what you want and there’s a high probability you will likely pull the plug.

I Need Acknowledgement

Another reason we give up and stop is that there are not enough rewards. Real-life doesn’t have a like button, so if you had a particularly hard day and are not receiving enough pats on the back, it may seem to you like it’s just not worth the effort.

Real-life is hard. It’s thankless and dirty and unfair at times. It’s what makes us who we are. Getting through the hard bits makes the good times all that much better. Work hard and the rewards will follow.

person sitting in disbelief, concerned about life and the decisions they made. #choice #commitment #success #coachingtips #photography

IN CLOSING: Being afraid is a good thing, embrace it. Pushing through your fears is what makes you a better person. Overcoming one barrier only prepares you for the next. Giving up is the easiest way, but who wants easy? I don’t, do you?

The Floor Is Yours: How do you push past your fears?

{Add Your Comments Below}

🔴  Let’s Connect: www.JoshHMiller.com | Follow Joshua Miller For More

Joshua Miller is a Master Certified Executive Coach, creative leader and bestselling author. His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator, supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Please ‘Follow’ if you would like to hear more from me in the future.

Death To The Social Media #Influencer

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The term influencer used to be connected to large corporations, big firms or a particular product. Now, it’s attached to individuals themselves. Now it’s not just a term to refer to someone, but a highly sought after occupation. Or is it?

Why are people so concerned about what someone else thinks?

Why can’t people just make up their own minds?

How did this all become so lucrative and why does everyone want to become an influencer?

On-screen Generation

You can’t go anywhere anymore without seeing people glued to their screens. In restaurants, on public transportation, at their desks at work. Well, it would only be a matter of time before marketers took advantage of that.

It stands to reason that a generation of people who text each other while in the same room would also start taking advantage of that captive audience, as well. It might start with a goofy video of someone being pranked or a cat meme, but soon it takes off into influencing their followers.

Sadly, people don’t talk to each other anymore.

They would rather communicate with their screens and just stay home. Social media has made an entire generation very anti-social.

Please Like Me

Nowadays, we have young Beliebers in their room posting jam sessions suddenly getting thousands of followers. Those followers attract product makers and all of a sudden they wield the power to sell stuff…lots of it, without ever leaving their room.

Some influencers will post a picture on their Instagram account and if it doesn’t get 20,000 likes within half an hour, they take it down. Many of them pay for likes, followers and comments. We’ve become a world of vanity metrics and verification badges. People place their entire self-worth on how many people like a picture of their lunch

Follow Your Calling Not The Crowd

People can’t make up their own minds. Often, they start following someone because their friends do. Or one of their favorite celebrities told them to and now you hang on their every word and recommendation.

Some people depend so deeply on what a few people have to say about a particular brand or product, they can’t live without it.

It’s one thing to buy something because your favorite singer is promoting it, they are paid to do so. It’s another when a total stranger who managed to garner a lot of followers is telling you what to eat or wear.

It’s gotten to the point where the term influencer is now broken down into categories depending on how many followers and how much money they make.

You Do You

Do you want to look and sound and smell like everyone else? Of course not. That’s not how you express your individuality.

Go against the trend and the popular choice.

It’s actually very brave to step away from the trends and express yourself the way you choose. Wear what is comfortable and what makes you happy. Eat what you want, not what a pseudo-celebrity thinks you should.

Break Free

Maybe, just maybe it’s far cooler to not follow the lemmings off the cliff. Maybe, you can be far more interesting by expressing yourself in a manner that makes you happiest.

Take a moment and look up from your screen. What do you see?

Find the people who are also looking around, doing their own thing, not giving two emoji poops what anyone else is doing. Them. They are the ones who have broken free and reclaimed their power from online to off.

While influencers on social media may be raking in money right now, what happens next week?

Will they still be relevant?

Will they have dropped down below 100,000 followers and fallen right off social media altogether? What then?

How will you know what kind of toast to eat or shirt to buy?

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IN CLOSING: Rather than be influenced by a bunch of people you don’t know and will likely never meet, why not just do what you want. Buck the trend, break free from the sheep following the next avocado toast craze and find your own path.

Maybe you will find out you never really liked avocado toast, skinny fit jeans and Boba tea after all. It’s so much more satisfying to discover yourself than allowing someone else to define you. In the end, the most important like you will ever receive is from yourself.

The Floor Is Yours: When is it OK to call yourself an “Influencer”?

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Joshua Miller is a Master Certified Executive Coach, creative leader and bestselling author. His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator, supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Please ‘Follow’ if you would like to hear more from me in the future.

Stop Asking Leaders To Be Authentic. Here’s Why.

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In an age of ‘alternative facts’, ‘fake news’ and leaders who blatantly lie without blinking, we can’t be blamed for our search and desire for authenticity.

It’s exhausting. But what are we looking for? The Truth?

Maybe, we can’t handle the truth.

Asking for authenticity from our leaders, be it our employees, teachers, mentors, bosses, or world leaders might seem like a logical move but is that what we really want?

Let’s take a closer look at what ‘being authentic’ means and why we may not want it after all.

Social Media vs. Authenticity

Speaking of real and authentic, how about a trip through someone’s social media. It’s all sunshine and rainbows, to hear them tell it, but it’s typically a facade or arranged to make others, and moreover, them, believe it. Everyone is guilty of doing it, but is it okay?

If you are looking at a picture of someone’s new car and feeling a little jealous, don’t. If you are wondering how they can manage to pay for it, so are they.

If we were all to be authentic on social media, and let’s face it, some people are, it could become a depressing place to be. There is the other extreme, as well, where people feel the need to blow up and exaggerate every little snag and flaw, but we don’t want to see that, either. It makes us feel guilty.

When people are honest on their social media, “I’m scared, I’m hungry, I’m broke’, people look away. It’s a TMI, too much information situation we are not ready to embrace. If we read that and react, then we also feel a responsibility to them to lend an ear or a hand or money (cue the ‘donate’ button).

Where Does That Leave Us?

Authenticity comes to us in many forms, and depending on who we are and what we want, it depends on how much of it we really want. We live in a world of knock-offs, reproductions, and life-likes.

So what? We may ask. We should ask.

When we ask our peers or leaders to be authentic, what does that really mean? We don’t see people as authentic on their terms, but rather, ours. There is a famous quote by author Anais Nin that says, ‘We don’t see things as are, we see them as we are’.

It’s our own version of authenticity we crave to see.

If our leaders or society performs in a way that we don’t agree with, we are all too quick to deem them false. But we are judging them based on our core values, not theirs.

Please Be Authentic.

No, The Other Authentic

We may ask our leaders to be authentic but what we are really asking is for them to be authentic to the organization or companies’ values. True to what we deem to be real, not necessarily what their own core values are.

Herein lies the challenge.

Asking for leaders to be authentic and then condemning them for stepping outside the lines is a slippery slope. What companies are asking is for them to assimilate with the company values, not necessarily their personal ones.

Go Ahead, Ask

People always blur the truth on their resumes, in interviews, and on the job all the time.

Perhaps for potential employers and employees, there needs to be more rigor around the interview questions each has – to truly gauge if, how and when someone is a true culture fit. After all, everyone wants this relationship to work out right? It’s not easy for either side and you both want to get it right.

Maybe the answer is in the question. Don’t be afraid to ask the questions you really want the answers for. Skip the standard down-pat questions and opt for situational and behavioral interview questions. Cut to the chase and find out if:

  • Will they enjoy working with you?
  • Are you genuinely excited about the opportunity?
  • Do you have the core capabilities to do the job?

Feel Like An Imposter?

Curious if you’re suffering from a lack of authenticity? Here are several questions to get you thinking:

  • Do you lie to yourself about what really matters to you?
  • Do you compare yourself to others and come up lacking?
  • Do you run on empty in order to impress others?
  • Do you pretend to have a picture-perfect life?
  • Do you hold back when you are not sure of the next steps?
  • Do you need brand name clothes and shiny cars to prove your worth?
  • Do you spend your time proving to family or your culture you are worthy?
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IN CLOSING: Asking for authenticity from your newly acquired Pablo Picasso is wise. Asking it from our leaders requires patience and a clear understanding from the beginning to ensure you get the masterpiece you are hoping for.

We all have a version of ourselves we have to put on. One at home, one at work, one in social situations, etc. The key is to understanding who you are when you are by yourself and have no one to answer to.

The Floor Is Yours: Is it asking too much for others to be authentic?

Creating An Emotionally Safe Workplace: What Managers Can Learn From Effective Parenting

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An effective leader must possess various qualities and attributes in order to successfully motivate employees and create a safe, productive work environment.

Many managers often overlook the importance of creating a workplace

that is conducive to their employee’s emotional needs.

If you want to ensure that your employees are productive and satisfied with their position, it is vital that you work diligently to foster open communication and conflict resolution.

You should never underestimate the importance of developing an effective company culture and work environment. Companies that don’t support their employees and who allow morals and ethics to fall by the wayside will often see a decline in employee productivity rates. This can lead to lower profit margins as well as a poor public reputation.

Executive Coach standing next to inspiration and motivational quote #quote #executivecoaching #personaldevelopment #culture #workplace #hr #people

Below are several helpful tips you may want to take into consideration in order to build an emotionally safe workplace as well as what anyone in a leadership role can learn from parents about behavioral management:

DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKILLS

Conflict is a part of every workplace, and while it is important to take steps to prevent it from occurring, it can often be inevitable. This is why it is important to develop effective conflict resolution skills as a manager. It will allow you to deescalate situations before they progress into something more serious and will help to create a safe and positive work environment in which your employees are able to thrive and reach their full potential.

This is a skill that many parents must-have, especially if they have more than one child. Many parents find that it is beneficial to establish healthy boundaries and to teach beneficial coping mechanisms, both of which can also be helpful in any work environment.

  • You might want to consider properly training employees so that they are able to interact with one another in a positive and productive manner.
  • You may also want to set clearly defined rules so that employees fully understand what type of behavior is expected from them while they are on the job.
  • Additionally, when conflict does arise, it can be helpful to teach your employees how to effectively deal with their emotions. You might want to suggest that they take a break to calm down or that they open up about their feelings in order to work through an issue.

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Another helpful skill that managers can adopt from parents is the ability to successfully lead by example. Many parents realize that their children develop similar traits and behaviors that they themselves exhibit. This can often be a good thing, but it can also mean that the people around you may pick up on your negative habits as well. Therefore, it can be beneficial to be a good role model at work. This will show your employees how they should act in order to be taken seriously in the workplace.

  • Your employees will often look to you for guidance, and taking responsibility for your actions, respecting others, and maintaining a high standard of morals and ethics will help to promote these qualities in your employees.
  • The way that you present yourself will reflect on your company and will set a precedent for the entirety of the workplace. If your employees see that the company values loyalty, inclusiveness, and integrity, they will know that, when they come to work, they need to adhere to these standards.

IMPLEMENTING CONSEQUENCE FOR NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS

Taking disciplinary action against employees is never easy. However, this is another vital skill that managers can take away from parenting. It is important that you set rules and expectations for your employees. These should be clearly defined and made known to all employees so that they know the potential consequences of negative behaviors. Letting things slide that damage workplace morale and that may make other employees feel unsafe at work, should be avoided. For example, if an employee begins harassing others within the workplace, this should be addressed.

  • If you ignore it, this will give other employees the impression that the company does not take these issues seriously and that they are free to do the same.
  • Therefore, you need your employees to understand there are consequences, which will help to prevent creating a workplace that is out of control and in which negative behaviors thrive.

IN CLOSING: There are many similarities between effective parenting and management skills if you pay close attention. Both roles require strong leadership, disciplinary action, conflict resolution, and setting a good example. If you are able to handle workplace conflict in a professional and productive manner, this will help to create a safe environment that makes your employees feel good about coming to work each day. When you are able to lead by example and become a manager that your employees respect, this will show them how to properly present themselves in a professional setting.

The Floor Is Yours: How else can managers create healthier work environments?

{Add Your Comments Below}

🔴  Let’s Connect: www.JoshHMiller.com | Follow Joshua Miller For More

Joshua Miller is a Master Certified Executive Coach, creative leader and bestselling author. His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator, supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Please ‘Follow’ if you would like to hear more from me in the future.

5 Reasons You Should Fire Yourself From Your Client

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You have probably been there before when a client seems to think they are the only client in the world.

Where they expect you to give them all your attention, to be constantly on call, and will complain when you deliver anything they believe is less than 100 percent. Over time, you may find yourself dreading to pick up the phone when they call. You may feel overworked, underpaid, and frustrated.

All of this is enough to rip your hair out. And there are very few clients that are worth losing hair over.

But the great news is, you do not have to put up with them.

“You are in charge of whom you choose to take on as clients and when you say no more.”

There are many reasons why you should consider firing yourself from your client, here are five common ones to watch out for:

THEY MAKE UNETHICAL REQUESTS

  • This should be a huge red flag for you if you’re working with a client and they start to ask you to do something unethical or outright illegal. Not only do you not want to get tied up with this kind of work, but you also should see this as a red flag about the person. Sacrificing your integrity to make money is not something that will be sustainable long-term. Instead, get rid of this bad apple as fast as you can and make room for a client who values good business practices.

THEY’RE LATE ON PAYMENTS

  • You talked it over. You decided on a rate. They made it seem like everything was peachy and they may have even seemed reliable and trustworthy. But then it happens, a late payment. You think it’s okay, it happens. You accept the excuse and promises it won’t happen again. But it does. Again and again and again. Maybe the excuses continue or maybe they just give up. They aren’t giving 100 percent, but they’re still expecting you to. Somehow they believe they’re money is more valuable than other peoples and worth waiting for.
  • One thing is for sure, they have no business being your client anymore. Prioritize your self-respect and basic needs before holding onto a relationship that degrades your sense of value. Find some potential leads to replace them if needed and let them know that if they’re unable to make payments on time then you can’t work with them any longer.

THEY CHALLENGE YOUR EXPERTISE

  • It’s hard to get something done when a beginner keeps interjecting their half-formed opinions. You may then have to take the time to show them over and over why it won’t work that way. This can quickly become exhausting. A project timeline will start to drag on as huge chunks of time are eaten up by fighting with the client and trying to assure them that you know what you’re talking about.
  • Save yourself now from the fatigue and just get rid of any client that is making your life harder. You want to work with people who uplift you or at least don’t make you worn out and exhausted in an hour’s conversation. Set a boundary by asking them to step back and trust you with the project. If they’re unable to respect the request, replace them with a client who will.

THEY’RE INSULTING

  • Some interactions may leave you speechless. You think to yourself, “Are they serious?” You may wonder what just happened, and find yourself feeling from the whiplash of sudden changes in tone, attitude, and aggressiveness. Seemingly sweet clients lash out or make disparaging remarks that leave you feeling stunned and wondering whether you are good enough for the job.
  • If they’re insulting you and your work regularly, it’s a huge sign it’s time to make a plan of escape before your self-esteem is affected. If they’re a big client, downscale the time spent on their projects and find work to replace theirs.

THEY PULL YOU FROM YOUR PATH

  • An important thing to keep in mind when deciding on a client is whether they are helping you get closer to those goals. This may be harder because they could be good clients or decent individuals. But at some point, you’re going to want to be selective enough that you’re only taking on the clients that can also help you get further in your life plan. Look for clients who will give you the projects, experience, and networking needed to move towards your dream and fill your schedule with reaching out to them.
Executive Coach sitting with Motivational and inspiration quote #quote #coaching #selfworth #clients #business #success #tips #inspiration #value

IN CLOSING: It’s critical to be willing to leave any bad relationship, including working relationships. Doing so can improve the quality of your life and help you move towards more fulfilling and satisfying work and in the end, you are worth it.

The Floor Is Yours: What other red flags should you watch out for?

It’s Okay To Be Bold. Here’s How To Start.

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Advancing in your career, let alone life takes a little luck and a lot of work but in the end, you hopefully land where you want to be which is happy and successful.

How you get there is the real question.

We all know the folklore about the famous success stories paved with failure after failure only leading to success but what you don’t hear much about is the actual make up of these individuals – insert definition:

  • adjective: bold; comparative adjective: bolder; superlative adjective: boldest (of a person, action, or idea) showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous.

According to Costa and McCrae who are known for the development of the OCEAN modelbelieve there are ways to measure one’s openness to things like: ideas, actions, feelings, values, fantasy and aesthetics. Here are their six factors to consider when determining your level of openness:

  • Openness to ideas. Do you like a mental challenge? Rather than reading only popular novels, do you enjoy dabbling in philosophy at least once in a while? Are you open to ideas and solve problems just for the sake of keeping your mind active?
  • Openness to actions. Are you willing to try new things or do you prefer the same-old/same-old? If you’re high on this openness facet, you’re willing to try new foods, visit new places, and perhaps you’re always ready to check out the latest tech.
  • Openness to feelings. At any given moment, can you identify whether you’re happy, sad, or afraid? Do you find it easy to read the emotions of others? People high on openness to feelings are receptive to their own feelings and those of others. If you’re open to feelings, you’re both passionate and compassionate.
  • Openness to values. Do you think that there is only one “right” way to live? Should anyone who commits a crime be punished, or do you think that criminals can be rehabilitated? If you’re open to values, you’re able to see that life is full of gray areas. You also appreciate that other people’s views have validity and are willing to learn from them.
  • Openness to fantasy. Do enjoy imagining possibilities that don’t yet exist? Are you prone to daydreaming? Being willing to engage in mental flights of fancy suggests that you’re high on this openness trait. You like to turn new ideas over in your mind and even if you don’t act on them, you enjoy thinking about them.
  • Openness to aesthetics. If you’ve got free time, would you rather go to a concert or art museum or would you prefer to “veg out”? Is gardening or taking care of indoor plants one of your favorite pastimes?

Being bold can look like a lot of things. Take this quote from Sir Richard Branson. Wildly successful and equally known for being bold and taking risks. It’s served him well and if you look at the factors above mapped against his career success, the OCEAN model becomes a lot clearer to understand.

Call it “hustle”, “grind” (well actually please don’t as I can’t stand these terms) or simply call it being proactive, assertive, fearless or even courageous. No matter the label – there is an art to being bold without being overbearing. In order to move forward in life and get what you want, you will undoubtedly have to move beyond your comfort zone requiring you to take action, be open, be bold and hopefully not brash. Here are 5 ways to do just that:

  1. Speak up & Stand up: The only given if you don’t is that the answer will always be no and the situation will most likely never change. Don’t overthink it and put your fears about being judged to the side. Everyone gets scared but it’s the ones willing to breakthrough it who choose to be bold. Bold people actively express their needs with the intention to have them heard and fulfilled.
  2. Stop apologizing: There is an old expression that says never apologize more than once as it’s a sign of weakness. Never make excuses and own your actions as this shows both maturity and confidence. People who give a lot of excuses are typically fearful of being judged. Bold people understand this and don’t dwell on the negative and look to move forward.
  3. Don’t crumble at criticism: We all know the stories of Oprah, Disney, Dyson, Einstein and so on. If these people gave up on their ideas and pursuits because of public opinion, who knows where we would be today. Bold people know this and keep moving forward without allowing the naysayers to completely stop them in their tracks.
  4. Take measured risks: Bold people know that in order to exercise their courage, they will need to do something they haven’t done before and out of character. Being bold means experimenting. It doesn’t mean being irresponsible, it simply means you are able and willing to see past your current circumstances and open to creating new ones.
  5. Act “as if”: Or as many like to call it, “fake it until you make it.” It turns out there is something real to this. Pretend for a day that you are bold, no seriously try it. How would that make you feel? What might you do differently? Find bold people that you admire, research and study them and examine what and how they do things. Then model them and act as if you, too, are bold. Then when situations arise, don’t act as you would normally but pause and ask yourself what that person would do. Bold people know that this works and in order to grow in this area, it will take both time and putting yourself in new place and situations where you can expriment without feeling judged.

Final thoughts:

One could argue there is a fine line between being bold versus brash and they would be correct. Take our pal Sir Richard Branson, many have called him the latter but in the end, his boldness and of course his heart has won more people over in his achievements. Finding where the line is for you is your mission should you choose to accept it. Just remember along the way to be authentic, be vulnerable, be open to learning from failure, challenge the conventional ways, ask for help and if you do these things, you will undoubtedly begin to trust yourself more and increase your ability to be bold.

The floor is yours: What’s your advice on how to be bold?

Please leave your comment below as your insights are greatly appreciated and a learning opportunity for everyone reading this article.

With leadership,

Joshua / www.JoshHMiller.com

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Josh H Miller How Good Managers Become Great Coaches

How Good Managers Become Great Coaches

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Coaching is a lot of things, but it isn’t a lot of the things it’s claimed to be:

It’s not a quick fix. It’s not easy. It’s not a magical pill.

AND it’s definitely not about you, the manager.

Successful Managers know unlocking the employee’s potential to maximize their performance starts with listening. Here are 3 reminders to help you get started:

  1. Create a safe space that encourages conversation without judgment or consequences.
  2. Get curious, ask questions, questions open doors.
  3. Get comfortable with silence. If the question seems unanswerable rephrase it and ask again.

I recently wrote an article titled: 14 Coaching Principles All Managers Should Practice where I shared some of my best practices in supporting managers who coach. Here are are a few more critical components necessary to achieve greatness:

Josh H Miller How Good Managers Become Great Coaches

Help people to learn, don’t teach. The most powerful lessons are the ones we learn ourselves. Think about a time when you believed you had an elevating insight only to be told by someone that they have been telling you that forever. Being on the receiving end of being told or given advice can be informative. In some cases, advice can result in change, but it doesn’t inspire taking ownership of making a change. BOTTOM LINE: Guide the conversation, don’t run the conversation.

Personal insight is the greatest empowerment to change. For most people, inspiration to change generates from that eureka moment when they discover what you the coach already know. BOTTOM LINE: Great coaches tell people where to look but not what to see.

Turn insight into action. Insight is more than surfacing a thought. Take that thought apart, understand where it generated, what triggers are running their show and the benefits or not of transforming negative actions into actions for success. BOTTOM LINE: Be curious but also courageous in your questioning.

Forgive yourself. Yep, I said it. Think about it. People are creatures of habit. Most of what we do and say are instinctual, habits of responses and actions we have honed over a lifetime. Often, they are habits formed to serve a purpose that no longer exists. The brilliance of insight is that a new perspective can develop and inspire new actions, replacing old habits with better ones. BOTTOM LINE: Be patient with yourself and the process.

Coaching is 90% attitude and 10% technique.

IN CLOSING: As a manager responsible for developing your team, the main ingredient to a successful coaching scenario is focusing on the person being coached. As important as you may feel, think or be, it’s their story and insights that will drive a successful outcome, not yours.

The Floor Is Yours: What makes a good manager a GREAT COACH?

*Add Your Comments Below*

 

Let’s Connect: www.JoshHMiller.com | Follow Joshua Miller For More

Joshua Miller is a Master Certified Executive Coach, creative leader and bestselling author. His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator, supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Please ‘Follow’ if you would like to hear more from me in the future.

The 4 Letter Word Great Leaders Use

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You’re ready to address your list of to-dos when unexpectedly your attention is needed elsewhere, or you’re stymied by a problem where you have no solution. Building on feeling frustrated, the internal feeling turns into resentment, anxiety, overwhelm, and ultimately defeat.

Imagine a world without conflict. We could have the solutions to all of our concerns. We could add an extra day to the week or hours to our day. Our relationships would be seamless, and our energies would never exhaust. While this utopia isn’t possible, there is one action that will get you close. Asking for HELP. 

Four common reasons we don’t ask for help:

  1. We may feel we will be revealing incompetency (what we tell ourselves, not a truth)
  2. We may feel judged (what we tell ourselves, not a truth)
  3.  If we truly get the help we needed, we may need to make a change (always a show stopper)
  4. We think we shouldn’t have to ask, (no one reads minds!) holding back quote josh h miller

Successful people privately or professionally understand that asking for help can not only lessen their to-do list but also opens up the possibility of learning something new.

People want to help (even if they are not asking for help). Researchers, scientists, and leaders all agree helping others elevates our need to be purposeful. It is a natural instinct that studies show is present at birth. Asking for help can feel uncomfortable, but it’s a sure-fire way to lessen your workload, get unanswered questions resolved, provide a sense of relief, and propel self-confidence.

Overall if asking for help is uncomfortable, consider the following:

  • No one will think less of you if you are direct and comfortable in your request.
  • Take the guesswork out of it for the other person. Let the person know what you need, set them up to succeed by being direct, and detailed. giving details, trusting them, and appreciating the gesture.
  • Don’t apologize for asking for help Let the person know what you need, set them up to succeed, trust them, and appreciate their gesture.

IN THE END: Admitting you need help, and asking for it, is a triumph that sparks curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness. It shows a desire to learn and achieve, building resilience, increasing productivity, and emotional stability.

Make asking for HELP your new comfort zone.

 

 

The Floor Is Yours: What stops you from asking for help?

 

 

 

Let’s Connect: www.JoshHMiller.com | Follow Joshua Miller For More

Joshua Miller is a Master Certified Executive Coach, creative leader and bestselling author. His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator. He’s supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Please ‘Follow’ if you would like to hear more from me in the future.

WHY THE BEST BOSSES HAVE THE BIGGEST HEARTS

Why The Best Bosses Have The Biggest Hearts

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People bring a lot of things to work on a daily basis that they probably should just leave at home. For example, personal drama and kids. But there’s one thing that should always be brought to the workplace — that’s your heart. And the best bosses know and practice this.

We always hear about leaders needing to have high EQ and IQ but all too often we forget about LQ.

Yes, LQ, which aptly stands for Love Quotient or what I like to call the heart of this article.

Jack Ma was famously quoted about this earlier this year, saying, “To gain success, a person will need high EQ; if you don’t want to lose quickly, you will need a high IQ, and if you want to be respected, you need high LQ — the IQ of love.”

To clarify…

The Love Quotient is the simple act of being kind towards people.

WHAT THE LOVE QUOTIENT REALLY MEANS:

In the most basic way, the love quotient is about bringing your heart to work and to the people you serve. Think servant leadership, for instance. Servant leaders look to take care of and meet the needs of their colleagues, customers, communities and of course, their employees.

The love quotient is about authentic service and showing up through the lens of vulnerability with the intention to make a difference in the lives of others. Because this, in return, can create deeper experiences for themselves and their employees.

For more heart-centered leadership:

Although the LQ may not be the most scientifically proven concept, it can be qualified, if not quantified, through the eyes and hearts of those they lead. So as a boss/leader, showing you genuinely care must come from their heart. I’m not big on models but here was one that resonated deeply with this topic:

Human

You are human and if you want to lead others more effectively, they must see you as such. In other words, you make mistakes and you have weaknesses. And when your team can see more of the real you, they are more likely to choose to follow.

Empathy

Often leaders try to be sympathetic, yet empathy is far more powerful. The best leaders “put themselves in the shoes” of others by thinking of similar situations, or sharing their own related situations.

Attitude

Attitude isn’t about logic, it is all emotion. Therefore, it is OK to be disappointed and frustrated, and showing that to your team in small doses can be quite powerful. But they also need to see your positive passion and belief on display as often as possible.

Relationships

If you want to lead more effectively, find ways to connect with and get to know more about more of your team members. Remember that your goal isn’t to make friends, but rather to be friendly and genuinely interested in others. While there isn’t a formula, leading from your heart certainly includes building stronger and more lasting working relationships with others.

Trust

Trust is both a noun and a verb. If you want to build others’ trust in you (the noun), trust them more (the verb). In other words, to get more of the noun, do more of the verb.

Implementing the Love Quotient

Here are a few excellent ways I found online which you can start implementing with your team today. Check out the full list here.

Look for opportunities to help and support

Make it a habit to look for opportunities to help the people around you. Maybe it’s an official part of your job, leveraging your knowledge and skills in a way that has a positive impact on someone else’s job. Maybe it’s an unofficial role, like mentoring new hires. Or it could even be sharing knowledge and ideas with a co-worker around something in their life that has nothing to do with work.

Communicate healthily

How you communicate is one of the biggest ways to bring your heart to work. Does it open the door to connection and understanding, or does it feed conflict and divisiveness? How well does it acknowledge the shared humanity of the other person? Or does it instead make them an “other” to be dealt with? Would you say that it encourages people to open up and fly, or shut down and protect themselves? What about enabling a healthy resolution of challenges? Or does it pour fuel on them?

Express gratitude. Make it a point to sincerely thank people whenever the opportunity arises. This is a two-way street. The recipient gets the good feeling of being appreciated, and you get to bask in gratitude – a heart-based activity if ever there was one.

Acknowledge others

Likewise, sincerely acknowledging others’ efforts and achievements can be a way to work from the heart. It’s a validating and encouraging practice that requires little investment on your part, but has the potential to make a significant impact for the receiving party. And in the go-go, results-driven environment of today’s workplace, that kind of reinforcement is often all too infrequent.

Show patience

We live in an impatient culture. For that reason, showing patience is a gift of love. Not only does it create more space for your interactions to unfold positively, it also reduces the negative impact of impatience-driven conflict.

Connect

You don’t work with co-workers. You work with people. So 0pening yourself to connection with the people you work with takes you out of cogs-in-a-machine mode and creates the possibility of more meaningful experiences.

Final Thought

Love what you do, where you do it and ultimately love the opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life whenever possible. The process begins within yourself because you can’t fake this. So take the time necessary to find the love within and then go out and give that back to your team.

The floor is yours: Should more leaders practice vulnerability?

Have an extra 2 minutes to discover more about yourself? Take the quiz to find out if you’re happy or comfortable.

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With Leadership,
Joshua
www.JoshHMiller.com

Joshua Miller

Joshua Miller is a creative leader and impactful executive coach.

His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator. He’s supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Joshua studied at Syracuse University, NYU and Stanford. He combines that background with his deep knowledge of organizational behavior, performance and change management. He focuses on the analysis, design, development, delivery, and evaluation of scalable and global talent development solutions programs.

Joshua is a Master Certified Coach. He trained with the International Coaching Federation and CTI (The Coaches Training Institute).

moderation joshua h miller

Stop Being So Grateful. No Seriously, Stop. Here’s Why.

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They say that “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”

Who is “they”, and how do “they” know when or what I should be grateful for?

Every day we are forced into believing that we should be grateful for what we have or else.

Else what?

The else of course is looking like…well, ungrateful in the eyes of those around you and we all know that being ungrateful is a fast track to becoming a social pariah.

Gratitude has gone from a meaningful state, to a hashtag filled with memes and overused quotes telling us what we should do, feel and experience.

We live in a world where we are constantly told to be more mindful, more authentic and more grateful…but what if “more” is not the answer.

Being grateful, much like mindfulness and authenticity are all words that come with some mighty small fine print which most people neglect to read.

Throughout my 20’s I wasn’t grateful. In fact, I was pretty arrogant and felt entitled. It wasn’t until the universe showed up, with karma riding shotgun that I learned some tough but necessary life lessons. It’s sad that it sometimes takes us to experience the worst in life before we can appreciate how good we truly have it.

Entire gratitude.

The benefits of gratitude have been well documented and studied for years and for those who practice this, understand that developing a grateful mindset can increase optimism, lessen depression, and create greater happiness to name just a few benefits.

Sounds good right?

I mean, who wouldn’t want to shift from feeling crappy to happy by simply acknowledging their blessings. I know I would.

The challenge lies in how we do this.

Gratitude can definitely help you, but only when it’s accompanied with a healthy dose of self-awareness, a sense of how you are, and knowing where you are in your life.

Let’s call this reality.

I recognized this first hand in my previous career as a global creative director in the world of advertising.

There I was at the ripe old age of 24, sitting in my corner office, making a solid six-figures trying convince everyone around me how happy I was when in reality I was miserable. In fact, I was probably depressed but you would never know it because I was…wait for it…supremely grateful. C’mon, I had achieved what many others might aspire to have, so for me to be anything less than grateful could come off as arrogant or simply ungrateful.

I always used blanket statements with “how grateful I was for my job” even though I was hating every minute of it.

” I was using gratitude as a crutch to ignore what was really going on for me”

It took me a while to see it but once I did, I couldn’t un-see it.

My story is quite common for many others who will misuse gratitude to hide from the truth and avoid making the life changes and tough decisions we know we need to make. I eventually made the tough decision by literally falling into coaching but that’s another story you can read all about here.

We all know that, that suppressing our emotions is never a winning long-term strategy. What’s needed is:

  • A balance of being grateful for what you have but recognizing and honoring what you need.

Here are a few ways to practice being grateful with supporting links so you can get started:

  • Establish a gratitude ritual using a daily journal.
  • Show some self-compassion.
  • Practice random acts of kindness.
  • Tell someone you love them and how much you appreciate them.
  • Stop, pause and notice the beauty in each moment each day.
  • Nurture the friendships you have, good friends don’t come along every day.
  • Smile more often. Science says so.
  • Watch an inspiring video to lift your spirits.
  • Volunteer for organizations that help others.
  • Add to your gratitude list daily, at least one more thing each day.
  • Try to see the positive side in every situation.
  • Commit to one day a week when you won’t complain about anything.
  • Acknowledge those who do a good job.
  • Say “Thank You” more often.
  • Post quotes and images that remind you to be grateful around your house.
  • Recognize obstacles as opportunities in disguise.
  • Learn from your mistakes.
  • When times are tough, notice those who are by your side.

Final Thoughts: There’s no doubt that being (more) grateful can definitely increase the quality of your life. It’s also worth noting that practicing gratitude will look completely different for each person. Some may keep a daily journal, while others use guided meditation and some may decide to follow a self-proclaimed expert on social media. Whatever you choose, I invite you to consume in moderation and remember “more isn’t always better” – sometimes simply being a better version of yourself is all that’s needed.

 

The floor is yours: Do you practice gratitude and if so, how?

 

With Leadership, Joshua | www.JoshHMiller.com

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Joshua Miller is a Master Certified Executive Coach, creative leader and bestselling author. His career spans both the advertising world and the world of leadership. In advertising, he was the creative lead, responsible for the campaign strategy for Fortune 100 brands. Today, he is an innovator. He’s supporting the executive development and change management for many of the same companies.

Please ‘Follow’ if you would like to hear more from me in the future.