Strong leaders constantly evaluate themselves, check their emotional status, practice self-discipline and maintain their cool no matter what…
Leaders cannot overcome hurdles, make tough decisions and eventually experience positive events if they are not emotionally strong.
Wondering how to become an emotionally strong leader?
1. Understand that your emotions are useful
Your emotions are there to guide you through life and not superimpose over your life because life is more than your emotions. Of course, you have relationships you care about, a purpose in life, passions and goals.
Good or bad, positive or negative, your emotions are useful and shouldn’t control your life.
Being able to gain control over your emotions is all about recognizing which emotion you are dealing with, acquiring self-awareness, engaging in positive self-talk and forging positive habits.
2. Acknowledge that everybody has problems
Everybody has problems and is a part of life. You just have to face them sooner or later.
The truth is there isn’t a person in this world who is problem free. There are just some people who are able to handle them and others who aren’t.
Emotionally strong leaders are solution-oriented and understand that problems actually build character, experience, grit and stamina.
3. Learn from your failures
There is always a lesson that can be learnt from your failures.
That is why there is no need to dwell on the past, but mental muscles are built through adversity and more lessons are learnt from failures than from success.
4. Realize that your mind can adapt to just about anything
Whatever you are going through, however uncomfortable you may feel, emotionally strong leaders don’t run away from their problems.
After a while, you will grow, get out of your comfort zone and your mind will simply adjust to your circumstances.
Adaptable leaders know how to self-regulate, focus on the important things they can control and don’t focus on the drama.
5. Find your purpose
Your purpose is made of clear life goals that will motivate you, help you wake up in the morning and help you overcome adversity.
When emotionally strong leaders have found their purpose and their inner motivator, they are able to focus on the essentials, easily influence and motivate others.
Last Words Of Advice!
Give yourself the freedom to express your thoughts and emotions when you really want to.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Journey To Leadership is now hosting networking events…
Furthermore, introverts can be seen as “fair, thoughtful, intelligent, competent, diligent, and trustworthy”.
How To Manage Your Introversion?
Introverts must understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Introverts must also discipline their active minds.
They tend to make assumptions and create stories in their mind that hold them back and are not always true.
Instead, they must pick stories that propel them in life.
Introverts must learn how to protect their energy and take breaks when they need to in order to rejuvenate and be more alert at work.
There are several additional strategies to manage your introversion in order to achieve success:
Focus outward.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Practice and fake it until you make it.
Feel fear and go towards it anyways.
Be unafraid of rejection.
Embrace solitude. Protect their space and energy.
The Skills Every Introverts Need To Succeed
Introverts need to learn other extroverted skills to make them more effective in the workplace and to get out their comfort zone.
1. Networking
Networking is challenging for introverts but is necessary and inevitable.
For introverts, networking seems self-serving and distasteful.
To be able to network and connect better with people, it helps to listen to people’s needs, to ask them for advice and to understand that every interaction can pay off in the long run.
2. Communicating Consciously
Because introverts withdraw in their own world, must:
Pay attention to their own thoughts.
Be careful when and how to communicate with others so that the latter don’t make negative assumptions about them.
Stay detached from their work enough to be able to socialize.
3. Promoting Themselves
Self-promotion makes introverts very uncomfortable.
However, your work will not speak for itself.
You have to learn to promote your own work and competencies.
Review
Most books about career development and success are generally geared towards extroverts, which can get discouraging for introverts.
In The Successful Introvert, Wendy Gelberg gives hints on on how, when and where to use your introversion.
She shows that there is strength in introversion, that there are places and moments where your introversion is valuable.
The Successful Introvert by Wendy Gelberg is eye-opening. I recommend this book for shy and introverted leaders (in progress) who want to gain self-awareness, optimize their leadership and develop their career.
Some of us are not leaders yet and wish to become leaders. The thing is our introversion is often times what stops us from getting what we really want in life.
In addition, the corporate world does act like introverts are problematic and often singles them out. Introverts have to learn to accept who they truly are and make the best of their personality type.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
The key to success is versatility.
Introversion is not a limiting characteristic, although the accompanying traits may require some special accommodations (also true of extraversion, but that’s a subject
for another book). We make comparisons to people who are highly successful and see the ways in which we fall short. Meanwhile, we don’t get to see the struggles or challenges that they had to deal with, so their success looks falsely uncomplicated.
Some of the adjectives that frequently come up in describing introverts are quiet, serious, calm, reserved, detached, restrained, and private. All of these speak to our inner focus, and they can contribute to success when used appropriately.
In Ego Is The Enemy, Ryan Holiday teaches you to stay humble in your aspirations, gracious in your success and resilient in your failures.
How to achieve your aspirations?
Ego is your worst enemy and can easily sink your ship. Ego blocks your progress in life and sometimes fast tracks your downfall. To improve and fight your ego, you must:
Be open to feedback but learn to evaluate your own abilities.
Practice detachment, tame your imagination before it runs wild and go through life with a quiet confidence.
Don’t stay stuck in your head. Instead, participate in what is going on around you.
Try staying silent in conversation. Silence can be strategic and is sustainable.
Always seek to learn. When you are a student, you absorb what is going on around you, you are focused on gaining knowledge and improving yourself.
Avoid being passionate. Instead, favor purpose and realism.
Ignore when people slight you and brush off the pain. Just think of it as you paying your dues.
 Avoid being prideful. Pride leads to arrogance. It impedes your ability “to learn, to adapt, to be flexible, to build relationships”.
Doing ever stop working.
How to maintain success?
You have aspirations and you have worked so hard to climb the ladder of success. However, when you start succeeding, you will start facing new ego problems that can quickly erode your success. To maintain long-term success:
Don’t pretend that you know what you are doing. Instead, keep learning, stay focused on facts and do your best.
Don’t compare yourself to others or try to keep up with the Joneses because you will end up doing things you don’t want to do.
Always remember your purpose and what is important to you before saying yes to opportunities.
Don’t be paranoid, entitled or controlling.
Learn to organize your thoughts, manage yourself and others.
Understand that selflessness and humility are strengths and not weaknesses.
Don’t try to be the center of attention, hug the spotlight and take credit for something you didn’t do or deserve.
Patiently progress towards you goals. It is better to go at it slow and steady.
How to handle failure?
Ego, power and success can make you delusional. You have to constantly self-monitor and stay attentive for your own downfalls. Moreover, everybody goes through setbacks in life. Failure is not fair and happens to good people too. But with a big ego, you tend to get caught by surprise. Your ego will make it hard for you to handle rock bottom. To be resilient in your failures:
Know your worth.
Stay humble and on purpose.
Don’t abandon your principles and maintain your character.
Don’t depend on recognition and reward.
Make use of your environment and transform your failures into something positive.
Understand that, even if you do everything right and perfect, you still will experience failure.
Discipline yourself to do the right thing. It will be hard but it will makes you less self absorbed on the long run.
Review
Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday is short, practical and direct self-development book. According to Ryan Holiday, there are three stages in life: aspirations, success, failure. You will have to discipline your ego in all three stages if you want to get somewhere. Ego is our own worst enemy. It becomes detrimental to suppress or manage our ego before we develop bad habits. For example, he warns us against common knowledge:
Don’t be passionate or you will fail. It is better to be apathetic and acknowledge the realities of your passions.
Don’t flatter your ego.
Don’t think you know everything.
Ego Is The Enemy is ideal for leaders who want to tame their ego, improve their leadership and relationships.
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned. Ego is self-anointed, its swagger is artifice. One is girding yourself, the other gaslighting. It’s the difference between potent and poisonous. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote. For your work to have truth in it, it must come from truth. We will learn that though we think big, we must act and live small in order to accomplish what we seek. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong. All of us waste precious life doing things we don’t like, to prove ourselves to people we don’t respect, and to get things we don’t want.
Strong leaders constantly evaluate themselves, check their emotional status, practice self-discipline and maintain their cool no matter what…
Leaders cannot overcome hurdles, make tough decisions and eventually experience positive events if they are not emotionally strong.
Wondering how to become an emotionally strong leader?
1. Understand that your emotions are useful
Your emotions are there to guide you through life and not superimpose over your life because life is more than your emotions. Of course, you have relationships you care about, a purpose in life, passions and goals.
Good or bad, positive or negative, your emotions are useful and shouldn’t control your life.
Being able to gain control over your emotions is all about recognizing which emotion you are dealing with, acquiring self-awareness, engaging in positive self-talk and forging positive habits.
2. Acknowledge that everybody has problems
Everybody has problems and is a part of life. You just have to face them sooner or later.
The truth is there isn’t a person in this world who is problem free. There are just some people who are able to handle them and others who aren’t.
Emotionally strong leaders are solution-oriented and understand that problems actually build character, experience, grit and stamina.
3. Learn from your failures
There is always a lesson that can be learnt from your failures.
That is why there is no need to dwell on the past, but mental muscles are built through adversity and more lessons are learnt from failures than from success.
4. Realize that your mind can adapt to just about anything
Whatever you are going through, however uncomfortable you may feel, emotionally strong leaders don’t run away from their problems.
After a while, you will grow, get out of your comfort zone and your mind will simply adjust to your circumstances.
Adaptable leaders know how to self-regulate, focus on the important things they can control and don’t focus on the drama.
5. Find your purpose
Your purpose is made of clear life goals that will motivate you, help you wake up in the morning and help you overcome adversity.
When emotionally strong leaders have found their purpose and their inner motivator, they are able to focus on the essentials, easily influence and motivate others.
Last Words Of Advice!
Give yourself the freedom to express your thoughts and emotions when you really want to.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Journey To Leadership is now hosting networking events…
Leaders often have to make tough calls, take huge risks and face their deepest fears on a daily basis.
Fear has been infused into us since childhood, is often employed as an employee management tool, and guarantees a unique and universal experience at the same time.
Indeed, the same fear can manifest itself differently, can be based on different experiences and interpretations of events.
The truth is fear can be a friend or an enemy, can have a positive or negative impact, can be a motivator or an hindrance. It all depends on your understanding of your emotions, of fear itself and your level of self-control.
Wondering what are the best strategies to overcome your fears?
Most of the time, fear is standing right in front of our personal goals.
Hopefully, to every problem there is a solution.
Below are 4 proven strategies leaders use to overcome their fears.
1. Leaders identify their fears
Before overcoming your fears, you first have to identify them.
When you do identify them, it is time to write them down.
If you are unable to identify them, try journaling and describing on paper the situation that is bringing you fear to see if you can uncover a pattern or try asking the people closest to you.
Furthermore, journaling is a great way to acknowledge experiences, detach yourself from the fearful situation, log your thoughts during challenges, and to label your emotions.
2. Leaders get in touch with their inner self
Most people spend their entire life being completely disconnected with their inner self, without getting to know who they truly are and without achieving their life’s purpose.
That is how some many fears remain hidden and and it becomes necessary to get in touch with your inner self to overcome them.
Through exercise, meditation, visualization and deep breathing techniques, you can unclutter your mind and access your intuition.
3. Leaders upgrade their mindset
During difficult and fear inducing situations, it becomes detrimental to analyze your thoughts and feelings.
When you catch yourself thinking negatively, it helps to stop that thought, rewire your brain and replace that thought with a positive one.
After a while, you will come to understand yourself, fear and all its intricacies.
4. Leaders directly confront their fears
The best way to overcome your fears is to face them head on. Avoiding them might only increase your anxieties and your fears.
Once you face them, you will realize that there wasn’t really much to be afraid of.
Once you have identified your fears and the triggers associated to them, you will have more control over yourself, see the situation clearly and understand that these feelings often times don’t make sense.
Control your fears before they control you!
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Journey To Leadership is now hosting networking events…
Work is an integral part of life: we spend most of our waking hours at work more than anything else.
Lack of work-life balance has direct repercussions on our health, finances and families, creates fatigue, poor judgement, and poor performance.
Creating work-life balance means that you are satisfied with your contributions to your life and work, that you are able to create a sustainable synergy between both, and that you are fueled by them on a daily basis.
Wondering what you can do to create a healthy work-life balance?
1. Take care of yourself
In order to manage a healthy work life balance, you have to put yourself first, value your health and well-being, and boost your leadership self-esteem from time to time.
Then, you can set specific goals for yourselfto increase motivation, to build up confidence and to stay focused.
3. Assess your strengths and weaknesses
Assessing your strengths and weaknesses is a great way to figure out where and how to apply them, to know when and how to say no and to get the most out of your work day.
Implementing a successful work-life balance can be overwhelming at first but it makes sense in the long run.
You can start by:
Challenging your core habits and deal with change one at a time.
Prioritizing what matters most, avoid multitasking, pay attention to the vital few, keep your life simple and don’t be afraid of missing out.
Being more disciplined. In order to make your life worthwhile, avoid distractions. This means that you have to shut down your phones, your television and avoid checking your emails outside of work.
Whether you have been infected, lost a loved one, lost your job, are working from home or simply stuck in one place, the pandemic is affecting everyone…
There are different things that leaders can do to get their mind of the news and still stay productive, especially in this day and age where we are always connected thanks to the internet.
I have compiled a list of introspective and extrospective activities to do at work or at home. This way, you can grow as a leader and have fun at the same time.
Wondering what activities you can take up to keep you busy during lockdown?
1. Stay connected
Quarantine can be rough… especially if you are an extrovert. If you’re an introvert, it is a walk in the park.
It is important to stay connected with your support system and with your team at work.
Setting up your network and allowing your team to work from home will be more effective and ensure social connection. Posting short videos about the state of the company can keep your team alert and boost morale.
If you have done all this and still feel bored, you can:
Join live parties online.
Start conversations with random people on social media.
You will quickly notice that you are not the only one that is going through it.
2. Stay informed
It just seems that every way we turn we are being submerged with information of the pandemic arousing fear and a general sense of anxiety.Â
It becomes vital for your mental health to find balance and:
Not give in to fear.
Detach yourself from the news.
Get your information from trusted news outlets.
Fact check the information that you are receiving.
3. Take care of business as usual
Being at home, doesn’t mean that you can rest on your laurels and ignore your business.
If you are still employed, you have to stay disciplined. You may also want to get ahead and anticipate needs:
Assess your current work situation and plan for the future.
Look at your career and see if there is something you can improve.
You are still allowed to exercise. If you don’t want to go out and exercise, you can go on youtube and mimic a dance or fitness video.Â
Don’t take this time to slum it up in your house.
Boost your immune system.
Don’t abuse substances to cope with the situation.
10. Try something new
You have a lot of free time to try new things, to take risks and to do something you always wanted to do.
For example, if you have lost your job, start the business you have always wanted or try a sport that you have never done before that can help you relax.
11. Learn something new
You have got a lot of time on your hands to acquire knowledge.
From the comfort of your home, you can take the opportunity to learn a new language, learn a new instrument, take an online course, stay on top of the latest technology, perfect a skill or a process.
12. Help someone other than yourself
You can try lifting other people’s spirit by helping someone other than yourself:
See if your neighbor needs anything.
Give to charity and feed those who are in need.
Protect the vulnerable and take care of the people who cannot take care of themselves.Â
13. Binge your favorite show, book or podcast
Watch your favorite TV shows, movies or discover new ones.
Kindness is extremely hard to implement in the world we live in today because according to popular belief, kindness is weakness…
However, in the workplace, kindness is essential to leadership success.
Furthermore, genuine acts of kindness in the workplace don’t go unnoticed as people tend to pay it forward.
Indeed, most people who have been through fire in their personal and professional life appreciate serenity and kindness. They would try everything to maintain their self-worth and peace of mind.
Wondering how to develop kindness in the workplace?
Benefits Of Kindness in Leadership
Kind leaders act with the best interest and on behalf of their team and organization. They are authentic, humble, have high morals and a sense of decency.
In kind organization, leaders believe that the people are the heart of the organization.
Furthermore, leaders are able to increase engagement and empower team members who gradually grow in confidence.
In addition, being kind doesn’t mean that you are soft, a pushover, that you are avoiding conflict, that you lack boundaries, that you are people pleasing or that you have to put up with bad behavior.
It means that you take time to listen and understand the people around you before acting or making a decision. It also means that you analyze the consequences of your decisions.Â
1. Kind leaders are kind to themselves
Kind leaders are firstly kind to themselves and the people closest to them.
The best and strongest leaders put people first and treat their team with kindness.
They acknowledge people, show respect and demonstrate that they care. They simply treat people the way they want to be treated. They understand that they can get more things done, they have to treat people like people.
For example, they have face to face conversations and ask people how they are doing. They can be generous with their time and actively listen to people.
3. Kind leaders set clear expectations
They let people know what needs to be done to avoid miscommunication, misinterpretation, misdirections.
They don’t give out false objectives and avoid sending their team members on a wild goose chase. They celebrate their success and the success of others..
Team members will then commit to their work and reach their goals.
4. Kind leaders tell the truth
Telling the truth encourages growth within the team and builds up the leader’s credibility and respect.
They understand that the truth comes with consequences but they also want the best out of their teams so they overpass their need for self-preservation or self-interest.
They place people in the right positions and give honest feedback to help people perform at their best.
5. Kind leaders agree to disagree
A difference in opinion doesn’t dictate their character.
They have great communication skills and can handle tough conversations.
They don’t ostracize or belittle people who don’t like them.
6. Kind leaders believe in equality and equity
They treat everyone equally, regardless of their personal bias, stereotypes, personality, character and performance.
They are culturally sensitive and advocate for inclusion.
7. Kind leaders create a safe environment
Kind workplaces increase productivity and improve the company culture.
Leaders understand that employees need to feel safe in order to be productive.
Unkind leaders instill fear and use their power and position to make their employees comply. Employees feel unsafe and tend to quit their jobs or resort to the same bad behavior to survive.
Last Words Of Advice!
What of being kind requires too much time and effort that I don’t have? Kindness is a long term investment that requires authenticity, strength and courage.
There are some people who will create chaos, use fear and anger as a management, and try to discourage you from being kind.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
Don’t forget to like, share and leave a comment below.
Self talk is everything. Matter of fact, it has been proven that negative self talk has tremendous impact on your health and your level of success.
Indeed, we can determine our emotions and actions by steering our thoughts. We can then control out thoughts by monitoring our self talk and the language we use. We can finally use strong and assertive language when speaking to and about ourselves.
There are several principles to change your mindset, to unf*** yourself and to achieve true success.
1. Your life won’t change until you make it
You must understand that you:
Have the life that you are willing to put up with.
Are not defined by your circumstances but only how you respond to them.
Even if you have no control over life events, you have full control of how you respond to it.
So, it is imperative that you stop playing the victim, stop blaming others, stop blaming luck, your childhood and other external influences for your circumstances.
You must also find out what you are willing or unwilling to pursue and put up with.
2. You will succeed at whatever you set your mind to
The reality is that you are already winning at the life you have.
Your failures and hurts are hidden victories that are pushing towards your subconscious goals in whatever domain you are working in.
You will find out sooner or later that you are really good at what you believe, at realizing your assumptions about yourself.
Therefore, once you understand that principle, you can use that aspect of our mind to go after positive goals.
3. It’s all a matter of perspective
Negative experiences have a tendency to spread like wildfire. It seeps through our everyday life and turn small problems into bigger ones.
The reality is everybody has problems butyour problem is not always as big as it seems. To put things into perspective:
Don’t allow your struggles to overlap with different aspects of your life.
Take several steps back until you have a clear logical view of your problems.
Face your past and future. You have probably faced these same problems in the past or worse and have overcome them. Looking back at your past, you will realize how ridiculous some problems now seem.
Believe that the future has great things in store for you.Â
Solve problems one by one.
4. You must take risks to be successful
We are obsessed with a need for safety and for certainty. Subsequently, we have stopped taking risks.
At some point in your life, you were taking risks.
Those risks have now become an inherent part of your routine. The moment you stop taking risks is the moment your life becomes flat and unsuccessful.
To be successful, you have to be willing to take risks, to face uncertainty, to look stupid and to be judged.
5. You are not your feelings
What you think and what you do are two different things and won’t necessarily align.
Most successful people and overachievers have understood that principle.
They feel the negative feelings but focus and act independently from their thoughts.
You don’t have to feel like it to act like it. By acting or by fully immersing yourself in activities, you reduce the amount of negative thoughts that you experience.
6. Success is waiting outside of your comfort zone
Some of your biggest achievements happened when you stepped out your comfort zone.
The more you remove yourself from your comfort zone, the more you will feel a sense of accomplishments when you succeed.
7. You have to be relentless
To get what you want, you have to be relentless, avoid distractions and disagree with negative thoughts.
You also have to start focusing on the problems in front of you, one obstacle at a time.
You don’t give up, you don’t quit, you don’t change your plans.
8. Your expectations won’t always be met
Remember that you have the freedom to choose.
Life and opportunities will never fully meet your expectations.
That’s why you have to learn to expect nothing and accept everything.
Review
Unf*** Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life by Gary John Bishop, is designed for people who feel stuck in life, who lack introspection and who need to build themselves up from the inside out.
Unf*** Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life teaches you how to talk to yourself, to find your true potential, to stop self sabotage and being offended.
Gary John Bishop repurposed the ancient principles of stoicism and shares tips on how to master your mind in order to be successful.
He also provides you with great words of affirmation and personal assertions. So, check it out!
Let me know below what you think about this book!
Favorite quote(s)
The more you tell yourself how hard something is, the harder it will actually seem.
It’s entirely within our power to determine how we think about and talk about our problems. They can be a nuisance or a stepping stone. They can hold us down or lift us up.
everything is solve-able, and if you can’t see a solution, it only means you haven’t worked it out yet.
Success is never certain. It never comes without risk.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2022
You must be logged in to post a comment.