With Character, On Your Way To Leadership!
Gill Hasson is a personal development coach. Gill Hasson is also the author of How To Deal With Difficult People: Smart Tactics For Overcoming The Problem People In Your Life.
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Your Best Self is unique, positive, evolved and aligned with your truth.
When you are being your best self, you are being your most authentic and at your core.
Connecting with your Best Self takes time and requires patience. To get in touch with your Best Self:
“SPHERES stands for Social life, Personal life, Health, Education, Relationships, Employment, and Spiritual life”.
The SPHERES tool, create by Mike Bayer, is a screening tool used to assess your Best Self in all areas of your life.
In the SPHERES tool, your social situation determines how well you project your Best Self to the world.
It then becomes imperative to analyze how you interact with people. You can also assess your ability to send clear messages, to listen to others, to embrace human emotions, to handle highly charged situations, to give and receive feedback.
Your personal life contains your self-image, your self-talk, the level of compassion and respect you have for yourself.
To create the personal life that you want, you will have to:
Prioritizing your well-being allows you to be present, keep a clear mind and achieve your Best Self.
Remaining in a “lifetime learning mode” will help you evolve into your Best Self and become more self-aware.
Once you find your passions, you will take pleasure in acquiring knowledge in that field.
Your relationships reflect who you are as a person.
Your Best Self will gauge who you want to be around, judge the health of a relationship and help you make the tough decisions.
In order to stay connected to your Best Self in all relationships, you must define your core values, exercise them and identify the people who live up to them.
We spend most of our days at work.
So, when we are not able to fully be ourselves, our work life tends to become draining.
It somehow becomes important to nurture our Best Selves at work or create a career path that allows us to maximize our potential at work.
In Best Self: Be You, Only Better, Mike Bayer shares tips and tools to help you achieve your Best Self. He helps you make a diagnostic of all the aspects of your life and provides practical solutions to your problems.
Furthermore, Best Self: Be You, Only Better is a workbook that teaches you how to fix what’s inside to fix outside. It is on point when it comes to assessing people’s behavior and can conveniently be revisited several time in your life.
Best Self: Be You, Only Better is ideal for leaders who want to improve their leadership skills and bring their best selves at work. It becomes clear that if you are your best self, you can create the best teams, take care of others and create the best organization.
With this workbook:
Many of society’s “rules” simply don’t apply to us as individuals, and if we spend all our energy on trying to be, do, say, and act like society wants us to, we are simply wasting time we could be spending on discovering and connecting with our Best Self.
Self-care is foundational to living your ideal life.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz gathers four “agreements” to live by to ensure a better lifestyle, a deeper understanding of life, a life in the moment.
The four agreements come from the Toltec teachings of wisdom. The goal of this book is to make each agreement a habit.
An agreement is:
It represents the rules that we abide to, that we pass down from generation to generation.
Unfortunately, we have not chosen the agreements that we live by. Most of the time, they have been chosen for us and have existed longer than we have.
The first agreement is to be “impeccable with your words“. This means that you must be careful of not using words against yourself and others.
Indeed, there is power in the words that you use. Matter of fact, it is the most powerful tool at your disposal.
You can use your words to create beauty or to wreak havoc.
“What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are, will all be manifested through the word”.
What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are, will all be manifested through the word. Click To TweetBeing “impeccable with your words” helps you suppress any toxicity from your mind, free your mind from fear and doubt, and filter out negativity.
Furthermore, words grow and take root in your mind if you are not careful. So:
The second agreement is to not “take anything personally”.
Often times, people are preoccupied with their own beliefs, feelings and opinions about themselves that they take out on others.
Even if they insult you directly, it is wise not to take their insult personally.
This agreement is necessary to avoid burdening yourself with people’s problem, setting “yourself up to suffer for nothing”.
Acquiring this habit will help you free yourself, keep your heart open, see people for who they really are, and be unaffected by fear.
Understand that:
The third agreement consists in not making assumptions.
Undeniably, assumptions are not the truth and breeds problems.
The third agreement will help you build better relationships and increase your communication skills.
To properly implement this agreement:
This fourth agreement encourages you to always “do you best” and consolidates all previous three agreements.
Forming the habit of always doing your best will:
Keep in mind that:
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz provides a very powerful perspective on life. It encourages self-transformation, self-awareness, self acceptance, and the understanding of others.
I found out briefly that The Four Agreements, yet short, is thoughtful and goes straight to the point. It calls out society’s hypocrisy, fear and domestication.
Everyone I know who have read this book has felt elevated. It was therefore hard to resist reading it and I have to say that I did not regret it.
As you read, you will find that you already had the knowledge and the wisdom within you but have been holding it back. You will learn to trust yourself and set yourself free.
The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.
Whatever people do, feel, think, or say, don’t take it personally.
Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you don’t need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally.
All the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.
Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are.
On one hand, people feel a constant urge to fit into the extroversion mould, to develop an extroverted personality and feel pressured to always project confidence.
On the other, introverts have become the ugly step-children.
Basically, the American Culture promotes an Extrovert Ideal when several temperaments exist, are valuable and needed in Society.
Many “people, especially those in leadership roles, engage in a certain level of pretend-extroversion”.
The Extrovert Ideal is “the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight”.
The Extrovert Ideal was born when public speaking became a must have skill in the beginning of the 20th century.
The American Culture swiftly shifted from a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality.
Hence, people started focusing on the way they presented themselves, on making a good first impression, on appearance, on selling themselves well all the time.
They then transformed themselves into personae, performers, sales men and women and became fascinated with movie stars.
Extroversion and introversion are extreme temperaments that are said to be inherited.
Most people exhibit behaviors along that spectrum depending on the circumstances: no one is fully an introvert or an extrovert all the time.
The most common misconception about these temperaments is that introverts are antisocial and extroverts are pro social.
The reality is that introverts are quickly overly stimulated, the said stimulation is exhausting and that they need downtime to recharge from socializing.
Furthermore, introverts are creative, tend to work alone, to value solitude because “solitude can be a catalyst to innovation“; it is vital to their creativity and allows them to deliberately practice.
At their core, introverts observe society rather than participate in society because participating requires too much mental multitasking.
In addition, they:
Even with opposite temperaments, introverts and extroverts are often drawn to each other and get along.
Most introverts know how to act out of character and fake extroversion to some extent.
Some introverts fake extroversion to survive, to fit in and succeed.
Others have fooled themselves into thinking that they are extroverts, have taken on a role that is expected of them or their job, feel obliged to serve up a persona.
The truth is that introverts can act out of character rather convincingly, should act out of character if it is vital or if they are deeply attached to their objectives but cannot and shouldn’t act out for too long. Acting out of character for too long can result in burnout and health problems.
To succeed without altering themselves, some introverts focus on core personal projects that are important to them.
To identify their core personal projects, introverts:
Furthermore, introverts understand that certain social situations can be intimidating.
Therefore, in order to remain calm and confident, they adopt the same behavior and facial expression as if you were calm and confident.
They also take regular breaks alone where they need to restore, recharge and be themselves.
Introverts may have to cut an agreement with themselves: they socialize and act out of character as much as they want to or as much as they are comfortable to just as long as they take the time to recharge.
In Quiet : The Power Of Introverts In A World That Cant Stop Talking, in an almost autobiographic writing style, Susan Cain puts a positive spin on the term “quiet”, reflects on the place of introversion in the American society and seeks to understand the Extrovert Ideal.
Susan Cain objectively describes her personal experience as an introvert and adopts a scientific approach to depicting the difference between introversion and extroversion.
In The American and Western society, there is an obsession and an urge to develop an extroverted personality.
Indeed, leadership is often equated to hyperextroversion and most of our institutions are organized to favor extroversion, value open spaces, transparency, team-work, and competition to the detriment of quiet leadership, creativity, solitude, alone time, introversion are not well seen
So throughout her research and her journey of self-discovery, Susan Cain goes through her own experience, childhood memories to find explanation and insights into her introversion and answers the following questions: Should introverts alter themselves to succeed? To what degree should they stretch themselves?
The answer lies somewhere between you can act out but you shouldn’t act out for too long.
Yet today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts—which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are.
We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal—the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risktaking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. He favors quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong. […] We like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual—the kind who’s comfortable “putting himself out there.” […]
Introversion—along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness—is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.
‘Here everyone knows that it’s important to be an extrovert and troublesome to be an introvert. So people work real hard at looking like extroverts, whether that’s comfortable or not. It’s like making sure you drink the same single-malt scotch the CEO drinks and that you work out at the right health club.’
They welcome the chance to communicate digitally. The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice. The same person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and then extend these relationships into the real world.
introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly
many people, especially those in leadership roles, engage in a certain level of pretend-extroversion.
Susan Cain
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Susan Cain is a practiced corporate lawyer, a lecturer and the author of Quiet : The Power Of Introverts In A World That Cant Stop Talking.
Our reality first starts in our subconscious mind.
Our subconscious mind has accumulated so much information around us from our childhood and has formatted our current system of belief.
No matter how much your conscious mind thinks that it is in control, it’s not. It is your subconscious mind that rule your life and manifest itself in your decisions.
The key is to unblock yourself by fixing your subconscious belief, to set your mind on what you truly want, to start present, quiet the ego, step out your comfort zone, and getting past your fears and the fears of those around you.
After upgrading your mindset, the second to creating the life that you want is to love yourself no matter what.
When you truly love yourself, you do not bother people and you do not want to be bothered by nonsense. To fall in love with yourself:
Our mind is our most powerful tool.
So much so that what we chose to focus on become our reality.
Therefore, once you have learned to love yourself, to rewire your grain and quiet the mind, it is time to set your mind on what you truly want, attract it and work towards it.
While you do so, it is important to give, to practice an attitude of gratitude, learn to forgive yourself and others, and to surround yourself with like-minded people.
When you start creating your own reality, life will get bad before it gets better!
You Are A Badass: How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness And Start Living An Awesome Life by Jen Sincero is a regular self-help book with known and effective Principles to improve your life and to live the one you want.
Except that Jen Sincero has an upbeat delivery, puts a funny spin to these principles and adds personable examples.
She forces you to look within, to challenge your perception of reality, your circumstances and your role in creating your circumstances.
You Are A Badass: How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness And Start Living An Awesome Life by Jen Sincero promotes life improvement from the inside out and is centered around love.
You’ll have to believe in things you can’t see as well as some things that you have full-on proof are impossible. You’re gonna have to push past your fears, fail over and over again and make a habit of doing things you’re not so comfy doing. You’re going to have to let go of old, limiting beliefs and cling to your decision to create the life you desire like your life depends on it.
If you want to live a life your never lived, you have to do things you’ve never done.
You are responsible for what you say or do. You are not responsible for whether or not people freak out about it.
What other people think about you has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
We’ve made being in fear a habit.
We’re pumped full of it as children, like sugar, then as we grow we continued to take in the bad news on TV and the horror in the papers and the violence in books and films and video games and all this junk that fills us to the brim with fear about the world. We’re taught to play it safe and not take risks, and to caution everyone around us to follow suit.
And it becomes such an accepted part of our social conditioning that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
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Whether or not you’re asked to take on new tasks, to work on different projects or you have been given a new opportunity, saying no without guilt or justification is a leadership skill that will often come into play.
Indeed, it is difficult for some poeple to say no because the word “no” has often a negative connotation and is assimilated to rejection.
In addition, even though the word “no” is powerful, it is often followed by a sense of guilt.
No means no and saying no is a right.
In addition, No is a sentence in itself. This means that you don’t have to explain yourself.
When you say no to one thing, you:
As simply as it is, no is a powerful word in itself and needs no justification. If you don’t want to do something, that’s OK. Don’t apologize for it.
This line works for people who you know, who you care about and who care about you. Otherwise, the person making the request will take this as a sign of request.
This says that you are somehow flattered by the proposition but cannot commit to it. It has the luxury of not being followed by an excuse.
Use I don’t instead of I can’t Introduce them to someone or something who can do what they are asking for
Silence is a powerful toolgo convey a message. Whether you want to say yes or no, pause and measure your words.
Changing the conversation is a good way to day no without saying no and to talk about something you care about.
Trust your intuition because your gut always knows best. You just have to take the time to listen to it.
Phrases such as these will allow you to buy up some time so you can think of a more appropriate answer.
Sometimes, you will meet people who will not respect your no or your setting of boundaries. You don’t have to recant yourself, you simply have the repeat yourself.
If they still don’t respect that, you have every right to walk away.
If you have a hard time saying no, think about the consequences of saying yes. This will motivate you to do the right thing.
Don’t forget that you can also come up with your own ways of saying no.
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.
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Indeed, a lot has happened.
For the most part, a pandemic is still being dealt with, social constructs have been thoroughly questioned, and people have globally been demanding change.
Even though change has never been easy to implement, things are slowly changing for the better.
Here are the 10 best quotes to help you operate change within yourself.
Change is difficult to implement and change first starts within ourselves.
Always remember this:
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.
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