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At the MORE magazine Re-Invention Convention I attended on Monday, I heard Carly Fiorina interivewed by the Wall Street Journal’s Laura Landro. Politics aside, there were some key points she made that had me taking notes.
CF: “If someone can’t explain something to me, they don’t understand it.”
I’ve been smooth-talked many times in my life. I’ve come to the realization, which Carly articulated so clearly here, that if I don’t understand what my client, prospect, friend or relative is saying, the likelihood is that it’s their explanation, not my shortage of intelligence. I can ask for clarification, restatement or more details.
When asked about companies seeking younger and younger workers, Fiorina gave her formula for life experience: perspective, common sense and good judgment. These are only gained through living, so are attributes less likely to show up in Gen X or Y…yet.
Walking into a room of women over-40′s was heartening. The vibe was upbeat, warm and collegial. A lot of life experience was seated in the chairs. I felt really comfortable and in my element. I met 4 women with whom I’ll follow-up. That’s a high number for a networking event.
Survivors, according to Fiorina, are those most adaptive to change–not necessarily the smartest, strongest or most long-suffering. The more responses you have, especially in the current world situation, the better your chances are for surviving and thriving.
My current state of mind is strongly upbeat, determined and flexible. My calendar is full. I know there’s business out there and I am determined to stay active and excited about small business growth.
I have everything I need and want in my life–family, home, community, stuff. I’m content. Until, that is, I receive the latest Neiman Marcus catalog or go to a networking event and talk to someone who is “ahead” of me in business. Then the gremlins come out and tell me I’m not enough.
I know I’m not alone. Fellow coach and Leadership colleague Brad Isaacs and I had the privilege of conducting our first Invitation to Get Real program yesterday for a wonderful group in Fairfield, CT. One of the major topics we hit was that feeling of not-enoughness. To a one, our participants had their own saboteurs telling them they weren’t smart, talented or worthy enough to deserve something in their lives.
By the end of our time together there was an appreciation of the importance of naming and claiming the gremlins in our lives. When you can embrace that shadow side of yourself, you are free to move forward. The energy required to tamp it down, deny it its head or react to its message is released when it is named and acknowledged.
I’m curious to hear the messages your gremlins send you?
A recent attendee at my goal-setting and strategies workshops sent me an email asking for help. She’d created a comprehensive list of her projects and wasn’t sure where to go from there. Reading through it I completely understood why she had difficulty getting out of neutral. It looked overwhelming.
For example, under marketing she listed:
- design new brochure
- create media kit
- create website
- gather testimonials
- created postcard mailing
- hire a graphic designer
- contact media
…and that was just the beginning.
Here’s the big secret: break each of the items down into bite-sized, doable tasks and plug them into your calendar as appointments. If you were to start with the easiest, most achievable one first I’d recommend “gather testimonials”–a great place to begin. It’s manageable, concrete and will have you feeling stellar after receiving all the wonderful feedback from your raving fans.
To break that down even further:
- Step 1: from 10-11am next Monday, go through your records and jot down the names of all the clients you’ve worked for in the past 3-6 months (make up your own time frame here). That should be fun as you remember all the good work you’ve done and the exceptional results your talent produced.
- Step 2: Now that you have a list of 10-100 names, schedule time on your calendar to follow-up with each of those names, say from 4-5pm Wednesday. Make 5 calls to request testimonial letters.
- Step 3: To make this even easier on you and your clients, jot down what you remember about the job you did for them. Type up some phrases you’d love for them to say about you and suggest sending a couple of well-crafted paragraphs to sign off on. I promise you–if they were happy with you and your work, they’ll be very grateful to help you and even more grateful that all they have to do is sign something. It saves them time and makes them feel good.
- Step 4: Collect the testimonials you received and either reproduce them for your media kits or add them to an online pdf media kit on your website. Make sure you’ve gotten permission to use these kind words in your marketing materials.
Ta-dah! I promise you that once you’ve gotten through these steps, which as you can see will take several hours, you’ll be chomping at the bit to take on more. It’s through the practice of chunking your goals down into bite-size pieces that banquets are created.
My brand new program, An Invitation to Get Real, is this Saturday. My co-presenter, Brad Isaacs, is flying in from CA on Friday, and I can’t wait. We’ve been working on this for months. We’ve got a roomful of participants (there are still a few places, if you’re interested) and I’m lining up the supplies in my office.
But one thing had me paralyzed. The guest room bed needed to be changed, and I hate housework. I mentioned it at a meeting on Monday morning and wanted to get into analyzing why it was that I had this issue. What great deprivation had I suffered in my youth that left me inept and antagonistic to bed-making? I asked for feedback.
My dear friend Doreen, rather than jumping into the analysis pool with me, asked me where the clean sheets were kept. It would be her delight to go to my house and “freshen the room.” I should tell you that Doreen is the owner of an award-winning inn in Provincetown.
One of the first motivational tape series I ever listened to was by Dr. Wayne Dyer. A story stands out clearly in my memory of a patient of his who was bemoaning the fact that she never learned how to ride a bike. “Let’s go outside and get you on one right now,” he offered. No, she wanted to figure out why it was that her parents had never given her that opportunity.
I’ve joined Wayne’s world. I want to be in action, not analysis.
