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personal leadership

March 22, 2011 by Joelle Jay

Opening Pandora’s Box

I had an interesting conversation with David Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of Global Human Resources at Marriott International, recently. He made me think.

All the time I spend executive coaching, what I’m really doing is helping people think. I am asking them provocative questions. Expanding their thinking. Challenging them. It’s also my role to support them when the thinking is hard, sometimes push them off the cliff of their limitations and then cushion their fall. The result is growth, and the result of growth is peak performance and an improved bottom line.

I thought that was a good thing.

But David showed me another perspective. He reminded me how hard it is to reflect. How unready sometimes leaders are to learn. He said,

Most people I find shy away from being introspective. Even if they have the capability they shy away from actually practicing introspection.

Knowing David to be a brilliant leader in the arena of leadership development, I was a little surprised. I thought leaders loved this stuff! Here’s what he said:

The times we’re living in today are tough. Everyone is under a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of uncertainty. A lot of emotional energy is devoted to coping with things outside our control. We can’t control the economy. We feel like victims. Everyone is trying desperately to stay calm and focused in the face of external pressures. This is supposition, but I think the average person does not look to add to the pressures they face. While introspection is great as a catalyst for growth and fundamental to growth, in essence what it really is is going to a zone of discomfort. It’s finding out things about yourself that may not make you feel in the moment good and in control. Especially in these times when people have such pressures, [reflection] could be a Pandora’s box.

And I suppose he’s right. When you open the lid to your potential, who knows what demons lurk inside, just waiting to jump out and grab you? Do you really have the energy to rally now, of all times, to fight the status quo? Can’t you just suffer through the challenges in peace?

Of course you can. Many do. I’ll admit that since David and I talked, I have met a few people who seem truly bedraggled by the impact of a negative economy. It would be cruel to unleash on them Pandora’s box.

Or would it? What I want you to remember it that practicing personal leadership is not just about facing your fears. It’s about finding your strength.

In Pandora’s box you may find old habits, destructive patterns, or hidden fears.

But you will also find a clear, inspiring vision of who you want to be.

You’ll find new focus on what you want to achieve.

You’ll find new strategies and tools for progress.

You’ll find fulfillment.

New ways of spending your time.

A stronger, smarter, more motivating team.

A whole new universe of learning and possibility.

You’re going to find yourself.

The Fifth Practice of Personal Leadership is Feel Fulfillment. I’ll admit that perhaps the process of getting there may present challenging questions, but those questions are the doorway to a satisfying life.

When you sit on the lid of Pandora’s box, you lock your real self inside. Go ahead. Open up.

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 for more information.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, The Inner Edge Tagged With: balance, best practices, business leaders, getting an edge, leadership, leadership strategy, personal leadership, reflection, values

March 4, 2011 by Joelle Jay

The Golden Life

One established principle of leadership is to know your values. I disagree. Values are indeed the raw materials of a golden life, but just knowing them is not enough. You also need to decide how to use them. You do that by looking at the role your values play – or could play – in helping you achieve fulfillment. We call this living your values. You are living your values when you’re not only clear about what you value but use it a basis for action.

To what degree are you living your values now?
When you live your values, they define who you are, not just who you want to be. If family is one of your top values, to what degree are you prioritizing your family? Are you spending time with them? Are you enjoying them, helping them, involved with them? If trust is one of your top values, are you being trustworthy? Are you trusting others? Are there any ways in which you might not be, or are there ways trust is being violated in your life? Questions like these aren’t meant to grill you or shame you; just to compare. Asking this question helps you hold up your life against your values to see how well they match. Then you know where to make adjustments to feel more fulfilled.

How would life be different if you were living your values?
When you live your values, they become an integral part of your life. How would it look for you to live your values? How would your personal life be different? How would your professional life be different? How would you act and be different as a leader? Knowing the answer to questions like these helps you make positive changes in keeping with your values. Practicing this kind of thinking, you can give up complaining about the parts of life that seem meaningless and actually bring them some meaning.

How can you live your values now for a more fulfilling experience every day?
When you live your values, you use them to make decisions. Your values are like the gas in a car. When you apply your values to your life, you drive positive energy into everything you do. Otherwise you’re are just idling and wasting power. Your values are especially helpful in making decisions, choosing perspectives, and resolving conflicts.

• Using your values to make decisions. Your values can help you make the big and small decisions that define your life. When you have to make a decision, big or small, ask yourself: How do your values influence this decision? Being explicit about your values gives you a basis for comparison when considering the opportunities that come along.

• Using your values to choose your perspective. Fulfillment doesn’t just come from using your values to decide what to do. It also comes from using your values to decide how to think. When you’re feeling challenged or struggling with a difficult situation, the question to ask is: How could your values enhance this moment? Even a chore like raking leaves takes on meaning when you connect it to a value of having a pleasant, comfortable home, and working for hours on the copy for a web page seems more palatable when you realize it fulfills your value of having a professional presence in the market. The right perspective can be the difference between a mundane and a fulfilling life.

• Using your values to resolve conflicts. Values serve a practical purpose in relationships: they help you resolve difficult issues. Many conflicts stem from a values clash. One person values speed, the other values meticulous correctness. One person values serenity; the other values excitement. One value crashes into another, creating tension and slowing progress. Simply by naming the values (“It seems like we have a values clash. I value loyalty, and you value freedom.”) you can move quickly into more productive questions (like “Is there a way we can meet both of our needs?” and “How can we get around this issue?”). Often these questions will lead to answers. If not, you’ll need to consider which values are worth taking a stand and which must be subjugated for the sake of a solution.

It’s not always possible to honor your values; that’s why feeling fulfillment is a practice. You practice aligning your choices with your values. The more you practice, the better you’ll become at creating a life of fulfillment everyday.

Take some time now to reflect on your values.
1. To what degree are you living your values now?
2. How would life be different if you were living your values?
3. How can you live your values now for a more fulfilling experience every day?

There’s an ancient Hindu story about the gods arguing over where they should keep the secret of happiness. Afraid that humans didn’t deserve or couldn’t handle this secret, they debated where to hide it. At first they considered putting it at the top of a high, high mountain, but reasoned that humans would eventually be able to find it. Likewise, they might find it in the darkest forests or at the bottom of the ocean. Finally, an idea struck one of the gods:

“I know the perfect place. We will hide the secret of happiness in the deepest depths of their own hearts. They will never bother to look there.”

It’s not easy to find the secret of happiness and fulfillment. But you have the ability to do it; the answer lies within you.

An entire process for identifying and living your values including a free audio Values Visualization and a companion worksheet is available at www.TheInnerEdge.com.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be talking about the process of living your values, and learning to shift your current reality into an experience of joy and fulfillment. For more information, click here or email Info@TheInnerEdge.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, Teleseminars and Webinars, The Inner Edge, The Inner Edge Community Tagged With: balance, book club, getting an edge, leadership, personal leadership, teleseminar

February 22, 2011 by Joelle Jay

Of Brilliances and Blind Spots

What could you achieve if your business were 38% more effective, or if your customers were 44% more likely to be satisfied with your results? Would it make a difference?

For years, I’ve been an avid proponent of Strengths-Based Leadership. In a nutshell, the theory argues that if we want to be our best, we need to capitalize on our strengths. According to research from the Gallup organization (as reported in Now Discover Your Strengths by Clifton and Buckingham, among others), in organizations where leaders are encouraged to build on their strengths, the business is

•         50% more likely to have lower turnover

•         38% more likely to have productive business units

•         44% more likely to have higher customer satisfaction.

You can improve your own results by building on your strengths. I call it Tapping Into Your Brilliance, and it’s the Fourth Practice of Personal Leadership.

Of course, we don’t always know what our brilliances are. But you can find them. My favorite resources are Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work, both of which offer you the chance to take a quiz that reveals to you your strengths.

But it’s not just our strengths that need work. It’s also our blind spots. Cece Sutton, the president of the retail banking group at Morgan Stanley, agrees:

“Great leaders work on themselves. They’re acknowledging and aware of the things they need to improve on to be better. I don’t know all my blind spots, but I know a lot of them. I’m not always conscious of them, but I do think about them and try to improve.”

What’s especially dangerous about our weaknesses is that they’re so hard to see. Think about that blind spot in your car – how scary it is to realize that another vehicle could be hiding back there, threateningly close, and you can’t even see it.

To excel as a leader, you’ve got to be able to see into your blind spots. To help leaders with this process, I’ve created a feedback system you can use to discover both your brilliances and your blind spots. It’s called The 360 Investment, and you can find it at www.The360Investment.com.

You can also learn more about Strengths-Based Leadership by downloading a free copy of my white paper, The Best of You and the Rest of You: Making the Most of Strengths-Based Leadership.

For now, just give it some thought. What are two of your strengths, and how can you make them work for you? What is your one biggest weakness, and how can you prevent it from holding you back?

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 for more information.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, The Inner Edge Tagged With: business leaders, business leadership, leadership, leadership strategy, personal leadership, strengths, strengths-based leadership

February 4, 2011 by Joelle Jay

From Brilliance to the Best

In The Inner Edge, you learned the practice of tapping into your brilliance. You now know your distinct natural attributes, as well as how to leverage them for a more powerful effect. The more you practice applying your DNA strategically to achieve your vision and reach your goals, the more you can do and the better you can do it. Then you’re not just brilliant, you’re truly being your best.

Being Your Best
“Being your best” may sound like a cliché, but let’s think about it more deeply. Each of the three words in that phrase is important.

Being. When you are being your best, you are focusing on the way you are. “Who you be” in any given moment is about your character, your alignment with your vision and values, and your ability to integrate your life and your leadership. It’s not what you do. It’s not what you win. It’s not what you have. It’s who you be that helps you tap into your true unique value. Focusing on the being aspects of your attributes (being caring, being inspirational, being strategic) will tie you to your brilliance.

Your. The biggest difference in being brilliant versus being just good lies in the operative word your. The goal is not to be the best. The goal is to be your best. Being the best is about ego. Being your best is about commitment. Can you be both? Sure. You probably will. But your attention must be on what you can do to succeed – not on beating everyone else. That’s a much more powerful position.

Best. “Best” is a moving target. Have you ever done what you thought was your best, only to surprise yourself by doing even a little bit more? The idea behind being your best is to push past the limits of what you thought your “best” would be. Find the edge – that spot where you really feel you cannot do one iota better. That is your best…for the moment, until next time where you find out yes, you can do even better.

Being your best instead of being the best is the opposite of the “nose to the grindstone” mentality that drives our culture…and drives many leaders to destruction. Being your best is being so yourself that you naturally excel.

And if you’re really ready to Be Your Best, use the worksheet, Your Best, in The Inner Edge: The Extension. Click here to see a preview or to purchase The Extension at https://www.joellekjay.comthe-inner-edge/.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be discussing what it means for your to Be Your Best – and how to get there. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, Teleseminars and Webinars, The Inner Edge, The Inner Edge Community Tagged With: book club, business leaders, business leadership, getting an edge, leadership, leadership roles, leadership strategy, personal leadership, productivity, strengths, strengths-based leadership

January 26, 2011 by Joelle Jay

Have Two Lists

Busy high achievers often see themselves as people of action, but they’re not always as efficient as they think. Check your own efficiency with this question:

How many To Do lists do you have?

Do you have one gigantic list that’s so long you can’t even read it in one sitting?

Do you have dozens of sticky notes plastered all over your desk?

Do you not even have a list at all?

If your answer to any of these question is “yes,” the better answer is “no, NO, NO!”

To excel as a leader, you’ve got to get the system down. There are many ways of list-making and action planning that are far more strategic than the To Do list. You can find some of them for free on the website (www.TheInnerEdge.com).

But for starters, consider how Adam Barnes, vice president of External Affairs at AT&T, makes his lists.

“You have to come up with priorities that are realistic. You can’t make every single thing a priority. You have to be disciplined in your rankings. I have two lists: the list of stuff I need to get done and the list of stuff I want to get done.”

Right now find a piece of paper and divide into two halves. On one half, write one list by answering the question, What do you need to get done today? On the other half, answer the question, What do you want to get done if you can?

Follow this system for 21 days. If you do, you’ll soon find yourself with no list at all. As one of my clients recently reported, “I never have a To Do list, because everything’s already done.” Imagine. That could be you.

Taking Effective Action is the Third Practice of Personal Leadership. You’ll know you’re taking effective action if:
• You know exactly what to do today to attain your vision, and you’re doing it
• You end every day feeling energized and fulfilled
• You’re getting the results you want.

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. For more information email Info@Pillar-Consulting.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, The Inner Edge Tagged With: balance, business leaders, efficiency, personal leadership, productivity, time management

January 11, 2011 by Joelle Jay

The Catalyst

What is the one thing you could do that would have the greatest impact on your vision? The answer is your catalyst. In the sciences, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. For you, a catalyst is an action that dramatically increases the rate at which you achieve your vision, without consuming you.

To take effective action, you can get the potency of a catalyst by using an action plan appropriately called the CATA List. The CATA List is a chart divided into four categories:

  1. Catalysts
  2. Achievements
  3. Tasks
  4. Avoidances.

These categories help you sort interminable lists of To Dos to find the ones that pack the biggest punch. Then you trim away the rest.

“C” is for Catalysts
To find your catalysts, ask yourself, “What is the one thing you could do that would have the greatest impact on your vision?”

Any item you call a “catalyst” must be an action that drives all the rest, either because it causes the rest of the actions to happen; it frees you to put your time where you want it; or it unlocks a barrier to action. The main criterion for your catalyst is that you know this one piece will do more than any other to advance you in the direction of your vision. If you’re writing a speech, a catalyst might be to stand up and practice. If you’re leading a company, a catalyst might be to communicate the strategic direction. If you’re trying to lose fifty pounds, a catalyst might be to go running or give up sugar. Looking at these examples, you can see how easily catalysts get crowded out by more pressing issues. Indeed, even though your catalysts have the most value, if you’re not careful they can easily get pushed aside.

To find your catalysts, think about what action you would take if you could find uninterrupted quality time because you know it would make the biggest difference in your ability to attain your vision.

“A” is for Achievements
The next category includes actions you classify as important. Really important. They may not have the transformational effect of your catalysts, but they are the kinds of achievements that matter on a day to day basis. These achievements typically take center stage in your life. They tend to be:
• daily actions
• key relationships
• priority projects
• deadlines.
As a rule, working on achievements makes for a very productive day.

“T” is for Tasks
You use the “tasks” category for the actions you’d like to take but can’t justify as truly critical. Yes, they are things that may have to get done, but they don’t have nearly the impact as your catalysts and achievements.

Tasks are big time consumers. Long meetings. Some networking. Obsessive perfecting of non-essential details. You might feel a little twinge when you admit these tasks are less-than-important, because you may want to do them. And you may get to. But only after the more valuable things are done.

“A” is for Avoidances
Many leaders find the “avoidances” category the hardest to fill. The items in this category take more energy than they deserve. When you’re trying to rid your action plan of excess, cut the fat by forcing yourself to put at least 25 percent of your To Dos onto this list. To find actions avoid, look for the ones that take a lot of time with little return. The “avoidances” list is a place to throw off extra baggage. Letting some actions go – undone – lets you to be lighter, more nimble, and available for the things that really matter.

As a whole, the CATA List takes the commitments that emerge from your focus areas and marries them in a single-page, concrete list of actions that ultimately lead to your vision for living and leading well.

When you create a CATA List, you have a quick categorization of everything you need to do, organized in order of value. As you think about all the actions on your To Do list now, can you see how categorizing your tasks in order of value might help you make room for working on your goals? Suddenly the most important thing you need to do isn’t just the most pressing; it’s the one that fits with your focus and leads to your vision.

To create your own CATA List, use the free worksheet available at www.TheInnerEdge.com. Go to the Worksheets & Audios page and scroll down to find the worksheet called The CATA List.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be using the CATA List to break through to greater, more effective action. For more information, click here or email info@theinneredge.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, The Inner Edge, The Inner Edge Community Tagged With: book club, goals, leadership, personal leadership

January 4, 2011 by Joelle Jay

Turn Before You See the Island

If you truly mean to attain the vision you have set for yourself and your organization, you can’t just be organized. You’ve got to be strategic.

It’s the Second Practice of Personal Leadership: Find Focus.

Joe Pinto, Senior Vice President–Technical Support Systems at Cisco, explains.

“It’s important that leaders sit back and plan. My leadership team and I get together every three to four months. We sit down, and we have a couple of key stakeholders sit down with us, and we plan out where we’re going. We spend probably one fourth of the time looking back over the last three or four months, and three-quarters of the time looking forward to what decisions we’re making to run the business. [Our organization] is such a big engine that if we decide to turn the ship when we see the island, it’s too late.”

Planning ahead like this is critical, whether it’s for work (like when you’re planning your team’s direction), professional goals (like your own career advancement strategy), or a personal desire (like the way you want to experience the new year). It’s a commitment. It’s a sacrifice. It’s also a leadership “best practice.” So if you want to be a great leader, you’d best practice.

Again, here’s Joe’s three-part formula for finding focus:

1. Every three or four months, schedule a planning session.
2. Look back over the previous quarter.
3. Look forward to the decisions ahead.

I’ve created a guide that you can use every time you use this process. It’s called the Focus Areas Planning Guide, and it’s available (completely free!) at www.TheInnerEdge.com. Just click here.

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. The eCourse includes a set of brief leadership practices illustrated with the words and experience of a real business leader who exemplifies the practice. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Email joelle@pillar-consulting.com now for more information.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, The Inner Edge Tagged With: business leaders, business leadership, goals, leadership, leadership strategy, personal leadership

December 8, 2010 by Joelle Jay

SMART Goals vs. WISE Goals

In the business world, we’ve been trained to set SMART goals. But are SMART goals always WISE?

SMART Goals are:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Action-Oriented
• Realistic and
• Time-Bound.
There’s value in that. “SMART” goals have helped many people move from vague unattainable goals to clear, specific action, leading to the attainment of powerful goals.

The problem with SMART thinking is that it has a tendency to limit instead of inspire.

SMART goals can work against you.
• They can work against you if you neglect to write them and keep them fresh.
• They can work against you if they’re isolated from other important parts of your life.
• They can work against you if they conflict or compete.
• They can work against you if they lack spirit and conviction.
To avoid these pitfalls, make sure your goals are both SMART and WISE.

‘WISE’ stands for:
• Written,
• Integrated,
• Synergistic, and
• Expansive.
WISE goals supplement the clear, specific action of SMART goals by connecting them to a grander vision of who you are and who you aspire to be.

Here’s an overview to guide you in setting WISE goals.

Written

The “W” in “WISE” stands for “written.” Writing your goals is a critical step – and one many people miss. Writing forces you to be clear in your thinking. It allows you to look at your plans with objectivity. It instills commitment and puts your thoughts in a durable form you can revisit again and again.

Integrated

The “I” in “WISE” stands for “integrated.” Integrating your ideas means bringing them together in the same place so you can look at them all at once. Allow your personal and professional lives to intermingle. It’s okay if right under “increase profit share” you have “get a kitten.” They both improve your quality of life. They both contribute to your definition of success. You get to have it all. There are no rules. You make it up.

Synergistic

The “S” in “WISE” means “synergistic.” Whereas integrating your goals means bringing them together, synergizing means making them work together. Synergy happens when one idea advances another. Keeping a vision of what you want in mind when you think about your goals will help create that synergy. You really lose something when you decouple your goals from your vision; they become just another prioritized list.

The most powerful and peaceful way to think about your efforts is to see how they can coalesce into one complete vision for your life.

Expansive

The “E” in WISE stands for “Expansive.” Think big. Your goals should inspire you to stay on the path to your dreams, not lock you into a pattern of ticking off bite-sized action items from here to retirement.

This may be the biggest differentiator between SMART and WISE thinking. Spending too much time and energy boxing your objectives into a hard and fast formula can squeeze the life right out of them. Some examples:

SMART GOAL– Schedule team-building and strategic planning off-site by end of January
WISE GOAL –Transform my staff into a team of inspired, empowered partners

SMART GOAL – Leave work by 6:00 p.m. three times a week, organize my office and work with my assistant to find new planning system within one month from today
WISE GOAL – Feel in control of my life

SMART GOAL – Go on a date with my wife at least twice a month and tell her why I appreciate her at least once a day starting August 3rd
WISE GOAL – Fall in love again

The best goals are both “smart” and “wise.” SMART thinking gives your goals specificity. WISE thinking gives them heart.

To summarize, although SMART goals make sense, your goals must also be WISE. In the words of Abraham Maslow, “When we free ourselves from the constraints of ordinary goals and uninformed scoffers we will find ourselves ‘roaring off the face of the earth.”

In The Inner Edge: The Extension, you’ll find a complete review of SMART and WISE goals, along with a worksheet to transform your current goals into powerful commitments. Click here to see a preview or to purchase The Extension. Or, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com and click on The Extension.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be working with SMART and WISE goals so that you will approach your life and leadership with better focus – and better results. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership Concepts, The Inner Edge, The Inner Edge Community Tagged With: book club, getting an edge, goals, leadership, personal leadership

November 29, 2010 by Joelle Jay

Cycling Your Way to Clarity

Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, is a leader I’ve come to admire. He contributed to the book, The Inner Edge, and in fact, endorsed it. (To read his review, click here.)

In my workshops, I often use Patrick as an example for the First Practice of Personal Leadership: Get Clarity.

I like to distinguish between clarity and vision. Vision is the desired, ultimate end result; clarity is the ability to keep that vision alive day after day. Both are essential to succeed in any endeavor.

Patrick once told me he has had cancer three times, and each time he recovered, he has ridden his bike across the United States, from California to New York.

Think about the vision Patrick must have had for these cross-country trips. Arriving on his bike in New York. Finishing the ride. Maybe symbolizing beating cancer. Or celebrating life.

Now compare that to the clarity Patrick needed to get through the ride. Imagine what must have gone through his mind when the road got long. Or cold. Or hot. In the middle of the prairie and through every little town, every flat tire, every hungry mile. Why am I doing this again? Oh yes. Celebrating life. That constant reconnection to the vision is what we call clarity. It’s a different process than getting a vision. It’s pulling yourself from wherever you are, no matter how distant or disconnected it may seem, back to that vision once again. It’s that process of reconnecting, reconnecting, reconnecting that got Patrick through those rides.

And although he didn’t say it, I imagine the same was true for the cancer.

Clarity takes time to cultivate; sometimes we come by it easily and sometimes it takes a little more effort. Patrick once said to me, “Bicycling, I used to think about the Atlantic Ocean. I thought, as long as I’m pointed east and I’m still pedaling, I have to be getting closer.” When you have clarity about what you want, even if you don’t know exactly how to get there, you will be getting closer to your ultimate vision in every step.

I like to learn from leaders like Patrick. If you do, too, you may be interested in a series of leadership profiles I offer called 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. For more information email Info@TheInnerEdge.com.

Filed Under: Blog, The Inner Edge Tagged With: business leaders, business leadership, getting an edge, leadership, personal leadership

November 4, 2010 by Joelle Jay

The Inner View

Have you ever lost clarity on the way to your vision? You feel like you need the answers. Before you can gain they clarity you want, you need to take a preliminary step: you need to ask the right questions.

Your ability to ask yourself powerful questions will allow you to uncover thoughts and feelings that influence your ability to be successful. You don’t just answer the questions; you explore them. Exploration is not an interview. It’s an inner view.

There are three steps to exploring your “inner view.”

Step 1: Identify the Topic

As your first step to getting clarity, you identify the topic. What do you need to get clear about? What’s the issue, challenge, desire or goal that’s worth exploring now? What is your purpose for seeking clarity at this time? It could be a decision about your career, a particular outcome for a project, or a new way to approach a goal. You are going on an exploration; think of this step as defining the territory.

Step 2: Ask Open-Ended Questions

Once you’ve defined the territory you want to explore, you mentally walk around in it, allowing your mind to wander around as you find out what there is to know. You do this by asking open-ended questions.

Perhaps the most obvious place to start is with the all-powerful question, “What do you want?”

Here are some more questions to help you see what else there is to learn as you explore.
• What are the biggest challenges you face?
• What’s the best-case scenario? What’s the worst-case scenario?
• How would you like to see this play out?
• What else is there to know?
Open-ended questions like these help you find what else is important to you to keep in mind.

Step 3: Explore the Answers
After you have an idea of what you want and some questions to stir your thinking, give yourself time to explore your ideas. This could take the form of journaling, discussion with a trusted friend, colleague or advisor, or quiet reflection. Exploration (especially self-exploration) is a process. Give it time.

Remember: You don’t have to have all the answers. But you do have to ask the questions.

And for a free resource to guide your thinking, use the worksheet, Your Inner View. A copy of this worksheet is also available on the website (www.theinneredge.com).

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be taking a more in-depth look into of Your Inner View as one powerful strategy for gaining better clarity in your life and leadership. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

Filed Under: Blog, The Inner Edge, The Inner Edge Community Tagged With: book club, leadership, personal leadership

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