The other day I took the train into New York City and arrived at Grand Central Station 45 minutes early for my appointment. This gave me time to walk downstairs to use the restroom. As I hit the last step I suddenly noticed a light, gorgeous melodic sound floating through the air. I couldn’t place it’s source and thought maybe it was being pumped in from the ceiling. Then I sensed it was coming from behind a 3 foot pillar. I walked around the post and discovered a treasure – a gentleman, wearing a derby hat with a tie playing the harp. Yep, he’s the “HarpguyNYC,” Otherwise known as Eric Heger.

Harp

Like an angel from heaven. He sat there gracious, smiling and plucking away. I could have carried on, walking bruskly by like everyone around me. But I decided to stay and appreciate this wonderful gift – and to film him on my iphone. What amazed me even more is he was selling his CDs and his sign read: “Pay What You Want.” What does this mean really? Pay what you have? Pay what you think this CD is worth? Pay what you are willing to pay? Pay what you can get away with?

This man trusted he would somehow be taken care of and get what he needed. Or get what he deserved. There was no fear emanating from him.

I did pick up a CD and put $20 in his case which seemed so little for this concert and attitude uplift.

A mere 10 minute pause and my energy was shifted. A twinkle below grade added a lightness to my day and sparkle in my step. And it allowed me to take an important lesson of trust from this gifted musician.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States – a day that is just about having a meal with family and friends and being grateful for what we have. It’s my favorite holiday because it is not about what you are giving or getting but about appreciating what you have with those you love and who love and appreciate you.

At a time when much of the world is in pain and chaos, let’s focus on what can help us walk through the thick of it with more grace and peace. Look around and notice the music in your life. Where do things work? Where is there flow? And be grateful. Just for Today.

Thank you for reading.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure that sits in the front part of the temporal lobe of the brain, as part of the limbic system. It performs a primary role in processing of memory and emotional reactions. The reactions could be positive or negative emotions that can be instantaneous and overwhelming depending upon the stimuli and your associations to the stimuli.

There are few downsides to strong positive emotional reactions when leading people. Strong negative emotions could be anger or frustration or an inappropriate degree or expression of these emotions based on present circumstances. Obviously when leading people these kind of reactions can cause damage to your relationships.

When you have been “hijacked” by your amygdala you are in the full throws of an irrational emotional reaction which means your executive functioning has shut down. Your emotions are in control of you versus you managing them. “Amygdala hijack” is a term that Daniel Goldman coined in his book Emotional Intelligence.

Here are a few things you can do to prevent or minimize your reactions and/or recover more quickly once you realize you’ve been hijacked:

In the moment, to recover:

1. Work on your physiology. Take a deep breath in to the count of 8, hold your breath for 8, breath out for 8 and hold your breath out for 8.

2. Place your hands in front of your solar plexus with all your fingertips touching (thumb to thumb, pinky to pinky, etc.). Take a deep breath in at the count of 4 through your mouth like you are sucking on a cool mint. Hold your breath for 16 counts. Exhale through your nose at 8 counts. Do this for at least 3 cycles.

3. Laugh. At first it will be a forced laugh. Stick with it for 20 seconds and typically it will move to a genuine laugh with others joining you – and not knowing why! This breaks up your energy and re-orients you and those around you.

4. If none of the above work, then physically remove yourself from the situation, preferably going for a walk in fresh air. It will clear your mind and channel your physical energy.

For prevention: longer-term, start to notice what triggers intense reactions in you and work to minimize the associations and reactions.

1. Explore what memories they are associated to and reprogram yourself with positive associations.

2. Develop a strong positive mantra (statement of affirmation) that you repeat to yourself in the moment to thwart an attack.

3. Meditate – this can reset your neural set point.

Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

So we’ve discussed WHAT listening humbly IS and HOW to do it in posts earlier this week.

Now, let’s talk about times WHEN it is needed.

Well, the short answer is: ALL the time. When is it NOT helpful?

AND, here are a few key times:

1. When you have to influence a colleague or key constituent. To do so, you need to focus on the whats and hows:

a. Content: Make sure you understand their point of view.

b. Relationship: Make sure they feel heard, that you “get it.”

2. When you need to have your constituents understand your vision or buy into your plan of action:

a. You need to make sure you understand their concerns, paradigm, viewpoints so you can best tailor your messages in language and currency that matters to them most and they can best understand.

3. When you find yourself having a strong emotional reaction. This can result in your shutting out new information or alienating others and damaging important relationships:

a. This is what, in neuroscience terms, is referred to as, your amygdala has just been hijacked. As Dr. Relly Nadler states, “The “amygdala hijack” is a term coined in Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, his first book on the subject. The amygdala is the emotional part of the brain, which regulates the fight or flight response. When threatened, it can respond irrationally. A rush of stress hormones floods the body before the prefrontal lobes (regulating executive function) can mediate this reaction.”

b. The key point here is: we all have our triggers and our moments. You want to make sure you are proactive about identifying them earlier, more often and managing them more closely. Committing to practicing humble listening is one way that you can prevent hijacking. When you feel the temperature start to rise, take a deep, full-chested breath and ask a clarifying question to seek more information.

Stay tuned for more on the Amygdala Hijacking in next post…

Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Building on yesterday’s post, here is an Operator’s Manual on HOW to listen humbly:

1. Check your ego at the door. It’s more important that your colleague thinks what a great listener you are, then how smart you are.

2. Get curious. Wonder. Inquire.

3. Seek to understand – from THEIR point of view.

4. Stop. Be quiet. Allow them to respond. Sit on your hands if you need to!

5. Paraphrase/summarize what your colleague is saying in your own words. This will force you to stay with them.

6. Listen at deeper layers of meaning and inference. The deeper your go with adding what you are inferring and what meaning you attach to what they are saying, the more fruitful the information.

7. Seek confirmation. Make sure you have accurately captured what they are saying– that you’ve got it right. Ask: “Is this accurate?” “Is this what you mean?” They will confirm or correct you.

8. Do NOT move on until you get the “yes”. There can be no “no,” objection or advocacy on your part until you get the “yes”. This means that you have actually listened AND understood them.

9. Once, you’ve got it – THEN go to action, telling – or whatever is appropriate.

This dynamic of alternating between advocating, inquiring, reflecting – should be fluid and organic, as a conversation is. If you are trying some new skills for the first time, it might feel a little stilted at first. With practice, over time, it will be more smooth.

As you do your daily listening workout, make sure you have a trusted advisor to give you in-the-moment feedback on how WELL you are PRACTICING listening – and humbly. One cannot be an accurate gauge on their own humility. I call this person a “street coach” – someone who is there with you in the trenches on a daily basis.

Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

I agree with GE’s Jeff Immelt that Humble Listening is a key competency for leading today.

In an HBR article, Ram Charan points out that listening is a discipline. This implies it requires a level of rigor and sustained practice over time: keeping the intent to practice at the forefront of your mind, doing it, and proactively seeking feedback and incorporating the feedback for refined practice.

I’d like to focus on: what does it mean to listen humbly and how do you do it?

Be honest, don’t you often find yourself listening to someone with a biased view – looking for the “in,” so you can figure out how you need to tailor what you say – to persuade, inform or get yourself heard? This is really advocating in disguise. Advocating is telling, not listening. We rarely listen or listen actively with a truly curious, open mind, putting our needs/views aside.

Merriam Webster’s defines listening as “To give ear to…To hear something with thoughtful attention. To be alert to…” If we give someone our ear, it means that THEY are filling us with information that we need to process. If we are alert and paying attention, we are not assuming what they are going to say but are with them in the moment.

Think about it energetically as to how much you are taking in or pushing out information. Telling is pushing out. Asking and reflecting are taking in. A 30/70 ratio probably is more suitable for the humble listener. Afterall, we do have ONE mouth and TWO ears.

What does it mean to be humble? To listen without arrogance, believing that you don’t have all the answers. To listen without aggression. The notion of taking in implies a receiving, more passive state.

If you haven’t emptied yourself, then you can’t take in. Active listening is taking in, pausing, reflecting and digesting the information. Then you verify for correct receiving, that you have heard the speaker accurately.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post –  Humble Listening #2 – Operator’s Manual on HOW to Listen Humbly.

Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

In case you missed it, the Wisdom 2.0 Conference was held in March. It is the third of such conferences that bring “together people from a variety of disciplines, including technology leaders, Zen teachers, neuroscientists, and academics, to explore how we can live with deeper meaning and wisdom in our technology-rich age.

“The conference addresses the great challenge of our age: to not only live connected to one another through technology, but to do so in ways that are beneficial to our own well-being, effective in our work, and useful to the world.”

It’s founder, Soren Gordhamer talks about the danger of feeling disconnectedly connected. We live in a largely extroverted culture that seems to be on steroids in the current climate of social media. When you are constantly on, you can never really be on from the inside out and are in danger of burn out or overexposure. This reminds me of a guy, Dan Pearce, who blogs, Single Dad Laughing. Recently, he posted that he had over 4 million followers but felt lonely.

Feeling lonely means being cut off from people and connotes a desperation. It is not the same as being in solitude. The latter means you are by yourself but suggests a getting in touch with something deep inside yourself that you can only do when separated from people. Much can be revealed and learned when we bask in our solitude. Solitude revives and renews us. It brings us back to our vulnerability and our humanity. Solitude is a precious and underutilized – dare I say – tool – in today’s technologically-driven society.

Checkout the Wisdom 2.0 site for archived videos of insightful speakers – and then unplug, just for a while to absorb the thoughts.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

Hiring for agelessness is based upon someone’s consciousness, their perspective, their ability to shift from me to we. The individual is focused on how we can create something great together. These are ageless attributes.

You may know someone who, at twenty, is fearful, domineering and stuck in their ways. Or, perhaps you know of a sixty or seventy-something who is as vibrant, vital and eternally curious as your five year old? Passion, wonder, the ability to work collaboratively knows no age bounds.

These are all qualities that are core requisites for working in the 21st century: the age of speed and technology. It’s up to the user how they manage themselves to make the best use of this environment. They either lead themselves to more fragmentation or more wholeness – leveraging their own wisdom and that of the collective wisdom, their teams or families.

Solving our complex problems today requires an integration of different disciplines and a sense of how to creatively bring together seemingly disparate factors or factions. We can’t afford any less of our whole selves showing up to the party. You hire for agelessness first and foremost by paying attention to the individual in front of you, not just what the packaging looks like or what their resume says. It’s a brave new world.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

4Cs + FAA = Change. To create true, sustained change in your life you need:

Courage, Competency, Compassion, Commitment + Focused Attentioned Action.

Courage: Take a stand for or against something that you want to be different – whether it’s losing weight, being a nicer person, being a stronger leader. These all require you to think about yourself differently, do things differently and have a different experience of yourself and yourself in relationship to others and the world around you.

Competency: Have or acquire the problem solving tools or skills you need to make the change. If you don’t have them, acquire them or solicit someone else’s expertise.

Compassion: Exercise it with, and for yourself when you come up less than successful. If you are lucky, it will happen that you will not succeed on the first or twentieth time. This is a test of your commitment to your goal and an ingredient that strengthens you and teaches other lessons yet to be revealed. Feel with, be with your emotions in this process or you will marginalize your results.  When trying to change, you will have emotions! They give you information about what is happening and what might need to be adjusted.

Commitment: You are tested to stick with it, not matter what! Get the resources or supports you need to bolster this, if you need to.

You can have the rest, but if you don’t have FAA, you won’t create change. Period.

Focused: Stay on it! Minimize distractions. Put on blinders, if you need to.

Attention: Pay attention to what you are doing. Pay attention to what others say or how they receive what you are doing.

Action: No change happens without actually doing something different. When you act, your thinking or perception can change also. This reinforces your positive, focused attention.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

Dan Heath quotes a psychological study where two group of people are given different kinds of foods – one cookies, the other radishes. They are then asked to solve an insolvable puzzle. The high sugar group lasts 2 1/2 times longer than the vegetable group. I am a leadership/change consultant and a trained holistic health counselor/therapist so - I wonder if the radish group realized earlier on that the puzzle was unsolvable since they had healthy food in their systems!

I agree that change requires enormous energy and self control. We have so much energy to expend before we need to replenish, and so much self control before we have a meltdown. Individuals (and organizations) have a limited capacity of how much and what kind of change they can handle. You start with your desire, will and some advice/support on how to change. Then you try. If you don’t get the desired results, you either modify WHAT you are trying to change or HOW you are doing it. Change requires will, action and experimentation. To keep trying requires commitment.

Change is hard because energy and attention are finite resources. It can be easier when we realize that it is about creating different neural connections and/or rewiring well-grooved neural pathways in the brain (changing a habit).

Focusing your attention, repeatedly over time, literally changes the chemical circuitry in your brain. True, sustained change is hard because we often don’t “get it right” on the first, fifth or fiftieth time and we need encouragement, support and tools to stick with it until our brain gets with the program!  Staying focused on the positive, the outcome you want, versus what you are not getting, is the key. It’s as simple and hard as this.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

Yesterday I talked about making sure you have accurately assessed yourself – WHY you are putting off action.

Here are some strategies to address the root causes of why this happens:

1. For fear: Identify similar tasks where you have been successful in the past to bolster your confidence. Focus on the present possibility of success and try to stay with that versus jumping ahead to the implications of success. Stay present. Enjoy the ride!

2. For worrying about what others think: ask for support and feedback from your “fans” on what you do well. Remind yourself about what you do well by creating a list of successes, and know that you can only control yourself. Put on mental blinders: It’s not your business what people think of you. Your job is to do the best you can with the matter at hand.

3. For being overwhelmed: work with your boss, coach, peer, spouse or friend to talk out loud to “de-whelm” yourself and make the project or task more manageable: break it down into smaller, step/step tasks; ask them for guidance, coaching, suggestions as to what to do or how to do it; ask for helpful resources (books, articles, websites, training).

4. If you don’t like the task: delegate it, if you can. If not, then find a way to make it fun: play music, dance, doodle, give yourself a reward after key milestones and upon completion.

5. For fear of loss: acknowledge the loss – what you loved about the previous project or team, make plans to (re-) visit if appropriate and/or say good-bye.

These are some brief suggestions to get you started. (I’ve done whole seminars just on procrastination!). The key is to identify one of the above solutions or create your own – and try it. Don’t delay.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com