Joelle K. Jay

The Inner Edge

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Moving from Chaos to Control

It’s 3:00 in the afternoon. You’re standing in the middle of your office. Hands on your hips, you deliberate about what to do now. Do you sit down and sling out a rash of emails? Do you return a few phone calls? Or do you close your door and somehow try to concentrate on the big project you really need to work on? Frozen, you are immobilized by the possibilities. You drift off for a minute, staring off into space. Then you catch yourself and snap back into action.

The rest of the day you spend busily working. You pull out a project, then the phone rings and sets you off in another direction. You keep on top of your emails and other people’s requests as best you can in an attempt to keep the deluge at bay. Head down, you fly through tasks and manage the crises, barely looking up to notice the time until finally, the day comes to an end.

Driving home, you’re spent. The day has been intense and full; you take satisfaction in enumerating all you’ve done. Then you realize even though you’ve been busy all day, you haven’t really done anything. You’ve been so buried, you’ve lost sight of your grander vision. You find yourself being haunted by vague, unanswerable questions. Could I be doing better than this? Is this what I wanted for my life? Am I making any difference? Somehow answering these questions never gets to the top of the list. Why is that? Your mind drifts off, hypnotized by the traffic and whirring about what you need to do tomorrow.

Have you ever had this experience? Ironically, even though you may be working all day, you never feel like you get anything done. You’re busy but not necessarily productive. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder if you’re doing the right things. Not that you have a choice; you’re too swamped with what you have to do today to dwell for long on what you want to do or ought to do to be more effective. Still. You know there’s something wrong with this picture.

And you’re right. There is. What’s wrong is that when you bounce along from task to task, you’re not choosing where to put your attention. You’re living by chance and not by choice. You may be ignoring the most valuable parts of your life – the parts that are going to help you achieve your vision, possibly in the long term and definitely for today. Or, you may be doing many of the right things, but you’re not really sure. You haven’t stopped moving long enough to check. Plus, there are so many priorities, you find it hard to keep them all straight, much less stay on top of them all at once.

In order to get what you want, in order to be who you want to be, in order to live the kind of life you want to live and lead the way you want to lead, you need to be more strategic than that. You need to find focus.

Finding Focus is one of the ideas I share with leaders in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more.

By finding focus, you’re going to pull your thoughts out of the crowded rabble of your mind and give them the attention they deserve. Get ready to move from chaos to control.

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Snapshots

In my work as an executive coach, I often work with leaders around their visions – their visions for their companies, their teams, even themselves. However, in the stress and striving over the years, sometimes that vision can seem awfully far away.

Here’s a process you can use to rediscover to your long term vision and connect it to your reality today. I call it “taking snapshots,” because the process is akin to taking in a panoramic view and then snapping a photo to take with you as a reminder.

  1. Remind yourself of the long-term vision you want for your life and leadership in the future.
  2. Zoom in on the near-term vision of your life today.
  3. Ask yourself, how does what I’m doing today connect to the overall picture of my vision?

You can even take this one step further. Ask yourself a handful of questions as a follow-up.

  • Where am I now with respect to my long term vision?
  • How will things be different then – when I reach this vision?
  • When I do finally reach my vision, how will I know? What will be the indicators that I’ve arrived where I wanted to be?

In the same way you can snap a photograph to get a concrete reminder of something you’ve seen, by writing these answers down you can have a concrete reminder of your vision. This is your “snapshot” of your vision.
There’s a FREE Worksheet on my website that you can use to organize your thoughts. You’ll find it at www.TheInnerEdge.com – click on Worksheets and Audios (on the left) – and scroll down to the Worksheet called The Snapshot.

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Look Under the Rug

Have you ever wished you had more time to do what you need to do?

“Ha!” You say. “How many times a day?!”

Me, too. And then I remember – oh, wait. I do have more time. I have all the time I need. And so do you.

So where is it? You’ve got to find it. In you.

There’s a process for increasing your productivity. In order to get more out of your efforts, you’ve got squeeze every moment out of your energy. Find the shortcuts. Eliminate the distractions. Expand the time you need for the things that really matter.

To do this, you’ve got to be creative. It’s the same process you’d use to look at your expenses if you suddenly decided you wanted to go on vacation. You look closely at the details and find that little extra – and a little more – and maybe a big chunk over here – until you amass the money you need and Hawaii, here you come. Only now, you’re trying to save up your time.

Saly Glassman, Senior Vice President-Investments at Merrill Lynch, is a master of this. She is a financial advisor who has been listed consistently in the top third of the Barron’s 100 Financial Advisors. With a successful family business, two daughters, dogs, horses, and a few little hobbies (like enjoying a lovely 60-mile bike ride), she knows what it means to make the most of her time. Here’s what she says.

You’re looking for every angle you can get more productivity. You have to go into every little corner and look under the rug to see if there’s anything in here.

So where do you look? Try here.

Time checking email Time cooking and cleaning Time on the phone
Time in traffic Time shopping Time reading
Time running errands Time in meetings Time writing

Every single one of these can be eliminated – not just reduced; eliminated – if you get creative.

What are you waiting for? There’s no time to lose.

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here to order.

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The Road to Heaven is Paved with Good Intentions

“Intentions” have gotten a bad rap, no thanks to that old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” There’s actually something quite heavenly about setting an intention and having it fulfilled.

In coaching jargon, an “intention” is a concise statement summarizing a state of mind about who you intend to be, even in the midst of the changes and challenges of leadership. It starts with “I am” and ends with a value. A few examples:

“I am independent and confident.”
“I am courageous.”
“I am generous and compassionate.”

Each of these intentions describes a mindset you might choose at any given moment.

Leaders often set intentions when they need to stay cool in an intense situation, when they’re too busy to stay focused on what’s important to them, or when they are trying to make changes in their thinking. As you go through the stormy parts of life, your intentions anchor you to your values.

Why set an intention? Intentions shift your thinking away from negative self-defeating or counterproductive thoughts, and replace them with a mindset more aligned with your values. They also help you reframe a situation so you can choose how to act, think, and be for the best possible result. To give a few examples of leaders who have chosen intentions:

  • When Ryan, a corporate CFO, had to cut expenses, he set the intention to be resourceful and creative.
  • When Lei, a business owner, had to confront an angry customer, she the intention to be calm.
  • When David, an exhausted new dad, had to make an important presentation, he set the intention to be alert and focused.

An intention reframes the way you see a situation so that you can approach it in the best possible way – consciously choosing how to act, think, and be. Your intention has the power to change your perspective, open your mind, and shift your experience.

To create your intention, start by asking yourself, Who do I want to be as a leader? How do I want to experience my life? How do I want other people to experience me? What mindset or perspective do I want to hold? By purposefully choosing who you want to be, you enter leadership with the best of intentions.

Exercise

Practice setting an intention for an upcoming event – anything from your next meeting to a difficult interaction, to an evening at home. Use the Your Intentions worksheet in The Extension as a guide.

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview or Order Now.

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You & Improved

Do you have an ideal vision of yourself – the “you” you would like to be if only you could find the time…or had the right opportunities…or were given the right information…or made the right decisions? What would it be like to finally live that life? There’s actually a strategy you can use to help bring that vision into reality. I call it simply envisioning the future. Like a daydream, with meaning. In your mind, you see yourself succeeding: you…and improved.

Envisioning is not fantasizing; quite the opposite, it’s a practical, efficient technique to get clarity instantly by tapping into these rich stores of knowledge that sometimes get obscured in the chaos of daily life.

To envision your future, close your eyes and imagine yourself exactly where you want to be as a leader and in your life. Here are the steps.

Prepare. Set the context. What, specifically, do you want to envision?

Relax. Envisioning always works best when you are relaxed. Before you rush off to envision your future, slow down. Breathe.

Envision. Now imagine yourself at the time and place of your choosing – whatever and whenever it was you said you wanted to envision – and really see yourself there. Take it all in, using all of your senses and emotions, observing what it’s like to be you…then. Now take yourself on a tour. As if you were walking the scenes of a movie set, you move from one image to another. Your work. Your career. Your home life. You see it all while you’re there, visiting your future.

That’s it! Easy. When you’ve “looked around” this future vision of yourself, take time to debrief and interpret what you saw.

  • What surprised you?
  • Was there anything missing?
  • How did it feel?

Questions like these help you anchor the images while they’re fresh in your mind.

You can get additional insight by interpreting the images you saw. Recall the details and think about what they might mean.

Finally, to find out how this process has clarified your ideas about what you want, write down the answer to this final question: “When you have achieved what you want to achieve…when you have become who you want to be…when you have done what you want to do…what will be true for you?” Keep what you write. This is your vision.

Would you like to try this exercise in more depth? I’ve put up a FREE audio recording in my own voice that you can use to do this visualization the “real” way, with your eyes closed and a coach walking you through the process slowly. You will find it at www.TheInnerEdge.com and clicking on Worksheets and Audios (on the left). Look for the You and Improved Visualization Audio. Enjoy the process!

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Identification, Please?

Who are you as a leader? I don’t mean your title, I mean, what kind of a leader are you?

At IBM, Senior Vice President of Human Resources Randy MacDonald shares this advice: “Do not cast yourself in the image of what a leader is supposed to do.” What makes you powerful is developing the image of who you want to be as a leader.

As an individual, it’s important for you be clear about what kind of a leader you are. Everyone is a leader in some way. Throughout this eCourse, I will be referring to “leaders,” and I do not just mean presidents and CEOs. I mean you.

A business or corporate leader. Corporate leaders often hold leadership positions in their organizations: president, vice president, director, manager, or supervisor. You may even own the company. But you can also serve as a leader in your company even without the fancy title by the way you act and interact.

A professional leader. You can be a leader in your profession whether you are a consultant, entrepreneur, or an independent professional like an attorney, speaker, or physician.

A community leader. You may have a leadership role in public service, as a non-profit board member, in your church, with the Girl or Boy Scouts, or in your neighborhood.

A family leader. As a mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, grandparent or cousin, you may take an active part in creating your family environment.

An inspirational leader. You may be a leader among your friends, family and fans by the way you conduct yourself – as reflected by your character, your choices, and your demeanor.

A thought leader. You could be leading change with original ideas and new ways of thinking.

An action leader. Maybe you’re the one with the energy to make things happen and the charisma to get others to do the same.

The leader of your own life. No matter who you are or what you do, you get to take the lead in your life. No one else will do that for you. No one else can. You may or may not have a fancy suit, a name plate on the door, and an assistant just outside. But every single one of us is leading a life, which may be the most exciting kind of leadership of all.

In what ways are you a leader?

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here to order.

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Losing Your Edge

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time is written…the most important event historians will see is not technology, nor the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time – literally – substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.

Peter Drucker

Do you think that’s true?

Is it true for you?

I spend a lot of time interviewing business leaders, and I’m often surprised at how disheartened they seem. Sometimes I wonder if this might be why: we have more to think about than ever, and somehow we have to be the ones to make it all work. When they feel disempowered, here’s what leaders tell me.

We are overwhelmed. Just juggling your workload fills every day; add in children, home ownership, personal finances, and the rest of your life, you can feel like you’re ready to collapse.

We are discouraged. Being a leader isn’t always all it’s made out to be. The pressure, the responsibility, and the poor models of leadership in corporate executives and public figures can sometimes make us wonder if it’s really worth it.

We are disengaged. Engagement is the degree to which you feel committed to your job, and it is a critical aspect of performance. Unfortunately, instead of gaining a sense of meaning from our work sometimes we just feel unmoved.

We are needed. As leaders we don’t always get what we need, but our businesses desperately need us. Nevertheless, we live in the Information Age, and business is driven by our knowledge. As leaders, we are needed to compete.

We are talented. The good news is that despite these challenges, it turns out we’re really talented. Years of Gallup research has proven that we are at our best when we are most ourselves and it’s clear there’s a lot more potential to be tapped.

We are leaving. Crowded by the pressures of modern leadership, we can’t seem to make it all work. That’s why so many leaders are responding in a quiet, decisive way: they’re taking their marbles and going home. With low set-up costs and instant access to global markets, we no longer need corporate infrastructure to fulfill our ambitions. We can do it on our own. We live in a free agent nation: going out on our own is flexible, it’s freeing, and it’s fun.

But having the opportunity to leave one’s job isn’t always the “win” it might seem. Businesses lose highly talented leaders, and leaders lose their home in the world of work.

What we need is a way for leaders to learn how to be better leaders while at the same time enhancing the quality of life that keeps them at their best. And we do. It’s called Personal Leadership – an aspect of leadership that honors the work leaders do as well as the people they are.

Are you practicing Personal Leadership? Take the quiz to find out! Go to www.TheInnerEdge.com and click on Worksheets and Audios (on the left). You’ll find a FREE Self-Assessment to help you understand where you already excel and where you need to put more attention to be effective in leading yourself.

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Leading on the Edge

As a leader, you have many great gifts. Your talents. Your opportunities. Your drive. What are you going to do with those gifts? How are you going to share them with the people around you and the rest of the world? To excel as a leader, it’s important to give some thought to these questions. Because the reality is that as a leader, the true gift you have to give…is you.

Sharing the Practices of Personal Leadership

Helen Keller:

“When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”

You have already discovered what’s possible for you when you’ve come to see yourself as a leader. Now it’s time to share the wealth. How will you give your gifts to the people you lead? How will you give to your organization and the world around you? How big can you can really be?

As you consider how to give of your gifts, you create more gifts for yourself, for others, and the world.

And your gifts are desperately needed.

When I wrote The Inner Edge, this “leadership crisis” was the news of the year. Stories in business journals as well as Time, Newsweek, 60 Minutes and Good Morning America all reported that accomplished, talented leaders were leaving their hard-won careers to find more meaningful ways to live. The people featured in these stories invariably described a choice between success and quality of life – and in many cases, it was one they didn’t want to make.

Our culture, our organizations, the times we live in – they have a way of conspiring against our efforts to be our best. But better business should not come at the expense of quality of life, and quality of life should not come at the expense of business results. Work and life should be able to co-exist, happily and successfully. They can and they have.

But every day, millions of people drive onto the fast-lane and race their lives away – ironically missing the fact that everything they are doing to try to improve their life is actually running them into the ground. The work weeks get longer, the stress levels rise, and talented leaders burn out or move on.

We need a whole new paradigm for work and life, and it starts with you. My dream is that the next evolution of our ambitious, achieving society will be to learn how to get the results we crave in the easiest, most natural way – the way that feeds us personally and enhances our quality of life. But no matter how great your life becomes, no matter how well your business does, you are holding back something even greater that the world urgently needs. Part of being a leader is sharing what you’ve learned and empowering others, as well.

Maybe you will be the person who plants the seeds of leadership in the mind of the next great world leader. Maybe you will be the one to help shift your organization into a healthier, more life-affirming place. Maybe you will initiate positive changes in the world that today you can’t even imagine.

People like you who see themselves as leaders aren’t just leaders in their jobs. They are leaders by definition, wherever they go. You will always be the one people look to for help and support. You will be the one who asks the questions, has the answers, or creates the opportunities for incredible things to happen. At home, at church, at work, among your friends, in your political party, when you’re with your kids, when you’re giving to charity, you will be seen as a leader.

What will you do with that potential?

It’s an honor and a privilege to be a leader – a real gift. What kind of a gift do you want to be?

In order to answer that question, you’ve got to lead on every level: your inner edge, your outer edge, and your leading edge. Then you’ll be truly leading on the edge.

For encouragement along the way, be sure to listen to the free coaching Audio, called A Parting Gift – available on the website at www.TheInnerEdge.com.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be looking at the legacy you are leaving as a leader, and looking to the next level of leadership ahead for you. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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The Sacred Trust

Over the course of this year, I have been releasing wisdom and insight from the leaders who participated in my research for The Inner Edge. I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts. (And if you’ve been following them, please let me know what you think!)

Cheryl Scott, the former CEO of Group Health and a senior advisor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was featured in an earlier profile. But she is not just an inspirational leader. She was also one of my husband Tim’s early mentors. We’ll include her twice.

For our last example of how world-class leaders have to be to achieve their status, I just want you to hear how Cheryl thinks. I’ll leave you with a quote from which she finds inspiration, in hopes that it will inspire you, too.

If you get to be a leader, which is a sacred trust, you feel extraordinary gratitude. It changes you.

There’s this great quote that I love from Albert Schweitzer.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

How many people in their life get to have that?

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here to sign up!

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The Virtual Vacation

Are your best ideas trapped in a too-busy brain? Good ideas need space, and they can’t get it in a crowded mind. You need time off from work to think clearly and be your best. There are lots of ways you can clear your mind, from a thirty-second meditation to a yoga class to a real vacation. No time for a vacation? Imagine this…

Stephen walked along the sunny path with his spaniel Sporty panting by his side, the two of them trotting along cheerfully downhill toward the lake. At last, free from the pressures of the office…free from the demands of the clients…free from the deadlines and the numbers…Stephen was finally on vacation. He parked himself on a rock at the edge of the beach and laid back to take in the view. Sitting in the sun in his shorts and hiking boots, he allowed his mind to empty completely.

Everything was still. Only nature’s sounds, a slight breeze, and an open mind. Peace.

Stephen breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He lay there, breathing, smiling, resting, he didn’t know how long. At ease. At peace. Alone. He dozed.

When his nap was over, he stretched long and grinned. What a feeling! And the best part was, he could come back here anytime he wanted. It was only a moment away.

Stephen opened his eyes, took his feet off his desk, and turned back to the computer. Just fifteen minutes of rest and an imagined trip to the mountains, and he felt completely renewed.

Do you need to get away? Whether it’s a fifteen minute vacation-in-your-office like Stephen’s or a real vacation for rest and restoration, a little time off can help you stop feeling like you’re a little off.

The Instant Escape

Meditation is an art form practiced around the world for finding inner quietude. It can reduce stress, calm your mind, and clear your thoughts wherever you are – walking, driving, or sitting right where you are. In its simplest form, the entire process is:

  • Close your eyes.
  • Breathe.
  • Clear your mind.

That’s it. Try it now. Breathe in deeply and slowly, breathe out deeply and slowly, feel your body relaxing, and gently release any thought that comes to mind. Close your eyes and try it for two more long, slow breaths. Notice the difference. You can meditate for just a few minutes, or keep practicing for longer and longer.

When you’re going top speed, slowing down in the middle of the day can sometimes seem like the hardest thing to do. But you carry within you the peace you need, and you can find it anytime. It’s just a breath away.

The Ten-Minute Escape

Stephen’s virtual vacation, as you saw above, is really just a form of meditation with a twist. As you do in meditation, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and release all thoughts. Then fill your mind with images, thoughts, or even music. If you’re worried about falling asleep, set an alarm and tell yourself that if you do fall asleep, you’ll awake feeling refreshed and energized.

The Hour-Long Escape

You can combine the techniques of meditation and imagination with exercise to really come away revived and restored. Yoga, walking, running, biking and swimming have a rhythmic solitude that are especially well suited to resting the mind, but you can also get away from stress and frustration with any kind of sport.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be exercise. A bath, a hot shower, an hour in the tub, some quiet time on the couch can all bring the rest you need if you’re able to detach from the pressure and stress.

Whatever you choose, be sure it engages your mind, either by helping you escape into a meditative state or getting you so involved in something else that you forget about work for awhile.

The Full Day Retreat

How often do you take a day off? Really off, not to get stuff done but to get reconnected with yourself? If you plan a day off for yourself, even that one day can feel like a vacation. Think of it as a retreat; you are retreating from the world of work for a day to clear your head and gather your energy. Then make sure that’s really what it is.

  • Be by yourself.
  • Go to the beach.
  • Get outdoors.
  • Get away.

If you really want to make the most of this retreat, turn it into a weekend. You’ll return with a new outlook on life.

The Working Vacation

If what you need isn’t a day off but a day in, with all the time you need to get stuff done, give yourself a working vacation, or as I call it, “A Vacation in Your Office.” You can also take a Vacation in your House. It’s when you take a day to hold all calls (or better yet, turn off the phone), take no visitors, answer no questions, pretend you’re on vacation and just blast through your To Do list. When you need to get to the bottom of those piles of paper, whittle down your To Do list, put away the holiday decorations, or just catch up on life, a working vacation can eliminate the tasks and the stress they cause.

A Real Vacation

One of my favorite Time Rules is one I’ll share with you: Always Have a Vacation in Sight. No matter where you work or what you do for a living, you get to take a vacation. The simple fact that vacations are a requirement of every legal working contract acknowledges the fact that as people, we need to get away. If we don’t, we cannot be our best. If you don’t, it’s no one’s fault but your own. Take a vacation. You’ve earned it.

If you’re honest with yourself, you have the time you need to rest your mind. The question is, are you taking it? All of the strategies in the previous chapter are meant to free up your time. When you maximize your time at work, you have more time for more productive work and more productive rest. It doesn’t take time; it takes commitment. Yours.