Archives For challenge

The Question My Insomnia Is Asking You

23/05/2013 — Leave a comment

no sleep The Question My Insomnia Is Asking You

Sleep is very important. It is precious. If you’ve never been close to tears from trying to sleep you won’t understand. (Hey sleepers, don’t judge…) Insomnia is one of the worst things you could ever wish on someone. The effects are terrible to say the least. Your productivity and health are negatively impacted.

I have to be careful not to disrupt my sleep patterns. Believe me, the reminders are not kind. Getting my sleep patterns is one of the most challenging things ever! (<– See what I did there? An exclamation mark. Something I haven’t used in a very long time) Earlier this week I messed up my sleep patterns and this post (among others) is a product of insomnia.

I wish I had the gift of sleep many have… When insomnia happens I can only stay in bed and stare at the ceiling for so long.

I’ve figured out some of the reasons for the sleepless nights. Sometimes it is because I’m fighting an idea. The idea wants to come out and I keep trying to tell it to shut up and return during the following day. But I’ve discovered that some of my ideas don’t have working hours. (Those who get ideas in the shower know what I’m talking about… Is there any weird place you get brilliant ideas?)

Other times I’m just plain worried about something. Sometimes it takes me long to figure out what I’m worried about. Insomnia makes one slow and stupid…

When I can’t sleep I read in bed. I’ve had to learn to force myself to read fiction. Non-fiction just makes my mind more active. Sometimes I think I’m wasting time and decide to be ‘productive’. So I try to get out of bed as quietly as I can so I don’t wake Ingrid up. (She’s one of those generally blessed with sleep…)

One of my favorite places in the whole wide world, besides the newly found Medium platform, is at my desk. I sit there and write. I love writing. It is hard, excruciating but I can’t help it… I just love writing. So, I get to it. I write a line and rewrite it fifty different ways and eventually one ends up with a blog content that could be a tome if bound…

At other times, when I’m battling insomnia I study. I do research for my assignments and work on my assignments…

Ah, suddenly the “insomnia inconvenience” has been turned around. There are challenges and inconveniences that are easy to turn around. Everyone has his or her insomnia. This is not about weaknesses. It’s about regular or occasional inconveniences you encounter.

The question, well questions, my insomnia has for you:

What is your insomnia? 
What do you do with your ‘insomnia’?

 

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In Life , , ,
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Start | How To Raise More Leaders

17/05/2013 — Leave a comment

Every leader must aspire to lead well. No. Actually, every leader must lead well. The use of “aspiring” has been reason for too many leaders putting into the future what they should be practicing now.

It’s fairly common talk that great leaders make more leaders and not followers. It is not leadership when it doesn’t produce leaders. Leaders don’t only exist to lead people; they are there to raise leaders.

Leaders are leaders when they produce more than just followers, but more leaders.

The first step to raising more leaders is taking the “follower” label off those you lead. Those you lead are not likely to rise above the labels you place them. Treat those you lead as colleagues and not followers. Helping people realize they are more; that they can be more is the first step to uplifting them.

raise Start | How To Raise More Leaders

you’re not leading until you’re raising leaders

 

 

This doesn’t me you can’t assert your authority as leader, when necessary. It means you expect more from your team by expecting of them the leadership and thinking that your position requires. This threatens insecure leaders.

Insecure leaders are incapable of raising leaders. This is because they see any equipping as a conspiracy against themselves. To an extent, they are right.

Raising other leaders is about making yourself replaceable.

Instead of working against you this can actually work for you, in the sense that it sets you free to focus on other things. When you can grow other people to do what you do, it creates room for you, as a leader, to challenge yourself in other areas.

The reason why some leaders never grow is that they don’t intentionally grow out of their present responsibilities and positions. This starts by making sure that someone can do what you do.

Great leaders raise leaders that are, at least, able to do what they do. John Maxwell states talks about the Law of the Lid, where the leaders determines how high people he leads can rise. You haven’t led until you have, at least, brought people to your level.

Obliterate the word, “Followers” from your organization’s vocabulary. Epitomize the principle of following but stop calling those you lead your followers. They are your colleagues.

Related: What Giving Responsibility Can Do

This sets your team free from looking to you for answers. When you treat those you lead as leaders, they start taking ownership of decisions and strategies. They see themselves as responsible for thinking ahead. For innovation. For foresight. After all, these are some of the qualities expected in leaders.

Related: The Best Way To Train Leaders To Lead

You may want to stop having “team meetings” and start having “leadership meetings”. This makes your team bold in the face of decision-making…

You haven’t started raising leaders if, “Followers” still exists in your organisation… Start there.

[image by thisreidwrites | cc]

In Leadership , , , , ,
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The Grading Tango | Honest

10/05/2013 — 1 Comment

Everyone will have a perception about your abilities. Sometimes they’re unfounded. Some are accurate… you know the rest…

We have an idea of our capabilities and we’d like those around us to be as accurate as possible in their asses them. The truth is sometimes we really want people to see our capabilities as higher than they really are.

Leaders want their teams to admire them for how smart and great leaders they are. Team members want their leaders to overrate them so they seem a tad bit better than their colleagues. They want to be further acknowledged by having greater responsibility inferred on them.

weight The Grading Tango | Honest

be secure enough about yourself to be real. THAT is integrity and the basis of credibility

Who are we fooling? The sad truth is that when we portray ourselves to be better at something than we really are, we set our teams and ourselves up for failure. There is a fine line between stretching yourself and misrepresenting yourself. Misrepresenting yourself includes you not correcting people who rate your abilities as greater.

I don’t deny, being ‘graded’ better than you really are can present an opportunity for you to go up to ‘the next level’. There is a greater risk of failure. The stakes are higher and the reputation that you’ve worked for years to build could be destroyed in an instant.

Be honest about your abilities. Firstly, to yourself and to those who attempt to enlist you with a perception that you’re greater than you are. Be honest that you aspire to the quality they’ve graded you to and state exactly what you’re doing to get there.

Related: Wine | Why You Must Love Obscurity and Structure | Why You Must Love Obscurity

This will give you credibility with people. Integrity is when your words and your actions are one. This is a character we want everyone around us to have. The irony is we, ourselves, are willing to compromise this when it comes to us. We want everyone else to be truthful about his or her abilities while we want to seem greater than we really are.

Stop trying to get ahead through the image and be the real deal. Leaders, teams respect and will follow a leader that is real. Leaders love team members that are honest about their capabilities.

The danger of being dishonest cannot be overstated. It will be obvious that you’re incompetent when it matters most. And those are the defining moments. Those critical moments when you’re required to deliver at the level you’re not are the times people are either catapulted further up or taken down to even lower depths.

Don’t be smug; be real. Don’t undermine yourself; say exactly where you’re at. There is nothing wrong with being on a lower rung on the ladder as long as you’re working on getting better. Be honest.

[image by: pasukaru76 | cc]

In Self Leadership , , , , , , , , , ,
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How To Ask Great Questions for Great Learning & Leadership | Part 1

15/04/2013 — 4 Comments

Questions are a great medium of learning. Great students love and understand the importance of questions. Leaders who do not have appreciation for questions, especially directed at them miss out on opportunities to communicate values and vision to their team.

The mark of great students and leaders is not only being able to answer questions well, but also being able to ask great questions.

How to ask great questions:

Think

Boring interviews, classes or mentoring is often the result of boring questions. In order to take your learning or research to empowering levels never ask “off-the-top-of-your-head” questions. These questions are a little short of an insult.

Off-the-top-of-your-head questions normally get off-the-top-of-the-head answers. The answers are often obvious.

To make the most of time with your mentor, speaker or your team ask well thought out questions.

4855087885 a6966cdb1a z How To Ask Great Questions for Great Learning & Leadership | Part 1

questions, like any tools must be used effectively for greater results

|| image by Clarkston SCAMP | cc

Equipping questions are ones that even when you think about them, cannot easily formulate an answer for them.  Challenging questions create great opportunities for new information that can grow you tremendously.

If you know the agenda of a meeting you will be attending, think about the questions you are going to ask before the meeting. Consider how empowering they could be.

Prepare for attending a conference. Think about what it is about and what you want to learn from it. Remind yourself before each session. This will help you listen and engage with a critical ear, helping you to ask non-typical questions.

Great thinkers ask great questions, that cause great learning.

The Edge

 

Be a little more daring in asking questions. Interviews and meetings can easily be a boring and unhelpful because everyone wants to ask panels or other people in the meetings that keep people as comfortable as possible.

Don’t just ask questions to rile people or for controversy’s sake, but don’t be afraid to ask daring questions. Never be afraid to challenge speakers on their talks or subjects. Don’t be rude but ask the questions everyone has on their minds but is too scared to ask.

Fear of asking what is really on your mind will stand in the way of growth.

Any great facilitator, speaker, teacher or leader is hungry for deep engaging questions, and these questions do not come up when you’re too afraid to ask.

Ask anyway even if you have to ask with sweaty palms and a quivering voice. Remember the goal is to learn and help those you’re with to learn and grow as well.

Never allow difference of opinion or perspective get in the way of a great question and learning. Fear stops you from engaging those who think differently. Let your learning and cause be more important the being comfortable. Be on the edge if you have to…

Any question that doesn’t help you grow is not worth asking. Rock the boat if it is means greater growth.

In Ideas, Leadership, Productivity, Self Leadership, Teamwork , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Learning From Bono | Changing The World

27/02/2013 — 3 Comments

I wish I was at TED 2013. I followed Bono’s talk on Twitter and the TED blog. Wow Bono, the U2 front man, is passionate about music and world change. He is also co-founder of the ONE campaign, a movement fighting the injustice of extreme poverty.

I’m sure when U2 started Bono never dreamed that his music would give him the platform he has today. It is not only his music that has allowed him to fight poverty. He understood the influence or the platform his music gave him beyond his performance.

Means and End

I am not aware of Bono’s motivations when they started U2. It may have started out as a means to get their music out to entertain people and make a living. As with many things, you never realize the true potential of an endeavor until you actually pursue it.

The potential impact of endeavors gets more obvious when they are pursued

From Bono, we can learn not to make our vocation the end but a means. Dare to make your career more than getting cheese on your table. It is important to provide for your family but you have to live for something more than just fame or your career for the sake of it.

We have more to give to the world than our selfishness

Not having money, skills, time and other resources like Bono, does not excuse you from not contributing your share to world change. To leaving posterity with a great future. Reading this is evidence that you have more than enough to give.

Stop looking at what you don’t have and use what you do have to play your part in changing the world.

You may not grace the stage at TED like Bono and many others, but that is not the point. The point is leaving something for your children’s children’s children that you will be proud to give. A world where poverty is something read from history textbooks. A world where posterity looks back in history in shock and disgust at the levels of corruption in our time because it will be foreign to them.

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changing the world is not reserved for few rock stars. everyone of us has a part to play and we can do it passionately and big like rock stars

image by World Economic Forum | cc

 

Influence

Consider how much influence you have. You may not have a rock star’s platform but there are people you influence. Leverage your influence.  Influence is currency and catalyst for world change, but only works when it is traded. Dare to make big asks in making the world a greater place. Do it like a rock star and be unashamed and unapologetic about making the world a greater place.

What else can we learn from Bono and other rock stars to help us make the world a greater place?

 

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In Leadership, Life, Passion, Self Leadership, Vision , , , , , , , , ,
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