Category: Communication

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If Life is hard, it is especially challenging for rugged individualists.  

Rugged individualism, derived from “individualism”, is a term that indicates the virtuous ideal where an individual is totally self-reliant and independent from outside assistance.

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I was a proud rugged individualist through school, into my first corporate job, and into my first 2 entrepreneurial ventures. 

In 2006 I came across Entrepreneurs Organisation (or better, they came across me…) and I began to change.  I learnt that you can make much wiser decisions when you allow others to guide you with their experiences and their questions.

I have had many mentors in these last 12 years.  I have been asked to be the mentor to others.  I feel underprepared to be a mentor.  David Cohen, founder of TechStars, wrote about the lessons he has learnt over 11 years of day to day experience in identifying great mentors for the entrepreneurs that form part of TechStars.

The Mentor Manifesto

Here is David’s mentor manifesto (full text on his blog: The Mentor Manifesto)

  • Be socratic.
  • Expect nothing in return (you’ll be delighted with what you do get back).
  • Be authentic / practice what you preach.
  • Be direct. Tell the truth, however hard.
  • Listen too.
  • The best mentor relationships eventually become two-way.
  • Be responsive.
  • Adopt at least one company every single year. Experience counts.
  • Clearly separate opinion from fact.
  • Hold information in confidence.
  • Clearly commit to mentor or do not. Either is fine.
  • Know what you don’t know. Say I don’t know when you don’t know. “I don’t know” is preferable to bravado.
  • Guide, don’t control. Teams must make their own decisions. Guide but never tell them what to do. Understand that it’s their company, not yours.
  • Accept and communicate with other mentors that get involved.
  • Be optimistic.
  • Provide specific actionable advice, don’t be vague.
  • Be challenging/robust but never destructive.
  • Have empathy. Remember that startups are hard.

If you liked this post on mentorship, you will also like How to be a good mentor and What is Mentorship?

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“If every one of you changed the life of just 10 people… in 6 generations we will have changed the world” Admiral McRaven

Admiral McRaven offered advice for changing the world from his 36 years of experience as a Navy SEAL:

  1. Ask for help when you need it,
  2. respect everyone,
  3. persevere through failures and,
  4. make your bed every day.

So, go back to your bedroom… and make your bed.

 

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What is the good life?

We can survive for 75 years… but what is a good use of those years? The good life is choosing to go beyond mere survival.  The good life is a daily intentional choice to flourish.  We can develop the best of our strengths and bring the worst of our weaknesses under disciplined control.

The ABC’s of a Fulfilling Life

The ABCs of living the Good Life:

  • Action towards your strongest values (Productivity) make progress towards important things; Eisenhower’s matrix
  • Belief. Give your life away… chosen sacrifice-Sense of purpose (contribution, give your life away… can’t “save” your hours, must invest). The test of value: you get paid. Paid doesn’t guarantee value, but free is idealistic… and idealists will kill us all.
  • Curiosity – Life long learning (always curious, painful feedback) be better today than yesterday, be better tomorrow than today
  • Discipline over your poorer habits
  • Energy. Health (Imagine you had 1 car all your life… how would you take care of it? that is your body…)
  • Friends (top 20… when was last you spoke?) inner circle… better a shack with someone who loves you than a mansion with those that use you

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Ken Blanchard’s book “The One Minute Manager” is short, simple, quick to read… and excellent for any new manager or leader.

In this video I share 4 Conversations that Ken Blanchard says we need to learn to be able to have with our team members if we wish to be effective Servant Leaders.

4 Conversations we need to be able to have with our team.

  1. Goal Setting,
  2. Praise,
  3. Re-Direct and
  4. Wrap up.

 

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This video is from Bilbao in front of the Guggenheim Museum. I was in Bilbao for the launch of Vistage in the region.

In my courses I often have participants who hate following standard processes. Sometimes this is a good thing. When you decide to break the rules, you better do your homework and preparation so that what you deliver is excellent. Too often, “creative” people break the rules of structure… but don’t do the necessary work to be excellent in delivery.

If you liked this video, you might also like Performance Excellence: Deliberate Practice and the 3 Models of Mastery and Self Discipline will make you a Better Leader.

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This is a wonderful 10 minute speech by Brian Brault, Chairman of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation, during a United Nations Global meeting on how Entrepreneurship can make a difference to the UN Developmental Goals.

Creating a Shared Future for Entrepreneurs and Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

I have met Brian several times over the last 13 years that I have been a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation. He is an inspiration and I am glad that he had this opportunity to share such an important message to the world’s ambassadors and governments.

I am proud to say that Brian attended my classes (during EO’s Global Leadership Academy) on how to give a persuasive speech 😉

Thanks, Brian, for your time and dedication as a leader of EO.

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During the EMBA intensive week at IESE Business School in Barcelona, I had the opportunity to spend a whole week with John Zimmer, Tony Anagor, Tobias Rodrigues and Florian Mueck… and 119 wonderful IESE EMBA Participants as we learnt and grew both professionally and personally. Here, John Zimmer shares 3 tips on Speaking With The Audience.

More John Zimmer

Check out John’s wonderful public speaking blog: Manner of Speaking, and especially his regular “quotes for public speakers” that is now up to #281 

About John Zimmer
John built a successful career as a senior lawyer for the United Nations.  4 years ago he made the courageous leap and now makes his living as a keynote speaker and trainer.  John has won several speaking competitions at Toastmasters.  He maintains one of the top public speaking blogs, Manner of Speaking.  He has spent years doing detailed analyses of great speeches including Barack Obama, Monica Lewinsky, Will Smith and Oprah Winfrey.

 

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This video is about 4 different types of audience that you can face as a speaker and how to adjust your objectives and manner of engagement to each of these distinct audience groups.

The 4 Types of Audience

There are four types of audience, and consequent persuasive strategy that you can come upon when you are seeking to move a group to action through your speech.

  1. Friendly. Your purpose: reinforcing their beliefs.
  2. Apathetic. Your purpose is to first to convince them that it matters for them.
  3. Uninformed.  Your requirement is to educate before you can begin to propose a course of action.
  4. Hostile. You purpose is to respect them and their viewpoint. The most you may be able to gain is respect to listen to your views. It is key that you can present some information that is viewed as new to the audience before asking for any change in their position.  This is firstly courteous, but also gives the listener’s ego room to change without feeling demeaned (“based on this new information, I ask you to change”)

Dealing with a Hostile Audience

Specific Actions for Hostile Audiences

When providing new information it is vital that you help the listeners “assimilate”.  How can you make it real for them?  There are a number of techniques to bear in mind.

  • Use stories (ideally real stories), metaphors, hypothetical situations
  • Stress common ground
  • Present statistics/data that is clear to conclude from
  • Address conflicting evidence (what are the strengths and weaknesses of the conflicting evidence)
  • AVOID exaggeration or gross hyperbole.  The use of exaggeration in a number of areas of public debate has caused extreme entrenchment of the opposing sides. eg. abortion, climate change. The persuasive speaker works hard to keep to the facts and be clear about the logic of the proposed course of action.

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The 3rd Edition of TEDxIESEBarcelona is on today.  Here’s the agenda, a link to the livestream and a playlist of previous talks. (If you can see the embedded viewer via email, check it out here on the blog).

The Event has Finished.  I will share the videos here when they become available.

 

The Agenda for 7 April 2018

Talks from Previous TEDxIESEBarcelona

While you are waiting for the livestream to start today at 15:00 CET, you can check out some of the 19 previous talks on the stage of the Aula Magna at IESE Business School in Barcelona.

Some Tweets from #TEDxIESEBarcelona

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TEDxIESEBarcelona