Doing the work entails first determining what the work is.

I am not always great at this—I tend to underestimate (sometimes badly) how much it’s going to take to get something done. Case in point: the brand-new workshop I agreed to design, thinking, “That will take, what, four hours?”

Two weeks later, the workshop unfinished and the hours worked mounting, I wonder how I could have been so wrong.

What is the work? What tools do you need? What assets do you already have? Who else needs to do the work with you? Who can you ask for insight into what you may be forgetting?

A new day.

A new year, a new start, a new opportunity. A clean slate.

But a clean slate is often just smudged. If you look closely, you can see the vestiges of what used to be written there. 

What does it take to truly start anew this day, with the resources and energy and experience you bring? How can you acknowledge the smudges on the slate before you write a new story?

Yesterday was the day we honored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his vision and contributions to our world. 

We watched commemorative talks, we volunteered, we remembered the “I Have a Dream” speech, and maybe we re-read “Letter From Birmingham Jail.“

What do we do today? 

What actions do we take on the day after we honor this great man? How do we engage in the continuing struggle for racial equity and social justice in this country, not just on the third Monday on January, but on the day after, and the day after that?

What ongoing commitment do we make today to Dr. King’s dream? 

The thoughtful and wise Sheila Masterson invited me to be a guest on her podcast, Living Tarot. I was thrilled to participate, especially since this gave me a chance to talk about the intuitive underpinnings of coaching, directing, and even business.

At the end, Sheila shares her tarot reading with me!

Listen on Apple podcasts.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”–R. Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller was a thinker, architect, designer, and futurist, among other occupations. The above quote seems particularly resonant for this moment in time, when our existing reality is so fraught with injustice and dysfunction.  

How can we render the existing status quo obsolete? What are the new models we can create? I don’t know the exact steps, but I know that that kind of change requires imagination and bravery. A willingness to try and fail, to experiment, and to have people think you’re crazy.

But the potential to make change, to create systems that work more effectively for more people…isn’t that worth it?

What’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for everyone.

I see this frequently when people try to encourage others to speak in public. “What is there to be afraid of? You are going to be fine! What’s the worst that can happen?”

There are a whole bunch of assumptions at work here. The encourager assumes the nervous person feels the way they would feel in the same circumstances, and that a little pep talk will get them over the hump.

But the person who is nervous to speak in public is not like the willing speaker. And to suggest they should feel fine, that there’s something amiss if they’re not jumping at the chance to give a speech, makes them feel worse. It adds self-doubt and shame to the existing nervousness.

If you’re the encourager in this scenario, what can you do differently? First, listen. If they are telling you they’re nervous, believe them and don’t brush it off.

Second, acknowledge the nervousness. One of the best ways to start to move away from anxiety is to look it right it the face, and name it. 

Third, suggest a few tactics to help them to manage the nerves and show up strong. The video on breathing (below) is a great place to start.  

Mostly, though, remind yourself that other people are different from you (we all need this reminder sometimes!), and lean into the conversation with empathy and curiosity.

What does it take to connect with others? And especially, how can we take the first steps to communicate with people we don’t see eye to eye with?

Ignite CSP coach Neela Munoz spotted this great video with some insight into those very topics. (It’s just over three minutes—well worth your time!)

Recently, for the millionth time, I realized that what I say is only meaningful if the person I’m talking to hears me.

I don’t mean vocal volume, necessarily, though that’s a component of being heard. More, I mean that when we speak in ways that mute us to our listeners, we may as well not be speaking at all.

Emotion colors our words.  When the emotion and the content are at odds, the content is what suffers.  Instead of hearing what we say, the listener reacts to the emotion they perceive.

If I speak angrily to my son about cleaning up his room, he responds to the anger, not to the request. If I respond defensively to a client’s question, they will hear my fear and forcefulness, not the content of my answer.

The answer is not to disengage from our emotions. Instead, we can identify what feeling or need is driving what we’re about to say, and ask, “Will they hear my words, or just my feeling? What can I do to help them hear me?”

After being recommended Priya Parker’s “The Art of Gathering” all year, I finally read it in the waning hours of 2020. It is remarkable!

Parker’s expertise is in something that may seem like it should be intuitive—people gathering together. But her insight is transformative, and it centers around the idea that we should always gather for a purpose.

In our current meeting culture, the “purpose” of a gathering is likely to be “we have a standing staff meeting at 8 on Tuesdays.” Parker argues that in order for a gathering to be successful and meaningful, it needs more meaning than that. 

As many of our gatherings continue to happen virtually, we have an opportunity to reimagine them, to infuse them with purpose and intention. And I’ll go further, to say that our virtual gatherings suffer from a profound lack of environment. As I’ve been saying for months, we have to figure out how to recreate the container a physical space naturally gives us. Thus, intention and purpose are even more crucial.

If you’re a person in charge of hosting virtual gatherings of any size, I urge you to read her book. The payoff in engagement and time well-spent is so worth it.

https://www.priyaparker.com/thebook

Also! It’s not too late to decide you want to be a better public speaker before the end of the first quarter! Join the Public Speaking Catalyst–enrollment closes today!

What does it mean when we categorize some skills as “soft”?

The phrase “soft skills” implies something we can do without. When push comes to shove, we can overlook a lack of one of these “extras” because this person’s CV tells us they can “get the job done.”

But communication isn’t extra.
Communication is everything.

Let’s say you hire the person with the great CV, and it turns out that they are a bad, or even a mediocre, communicator. What’s that going to mean?

They will miss opportunities to connect with valuable stakeholders. They may fray relationships. They will send unclear messages to others. They will make assumptions that lead to lost time and money.

The job they are supposed to be so good at getting done will be stymied at every turn because they send cryptic emails, or don’t mention something they need, or are uncomfortable delegating, or don’t know how to encourage participation in a meeting. You may discover they can’t go on client calls because they’re gruff, or too talkative, can’t read the room, or are bad at presentations.

Communication is the way we get everything done. It’s crucial to our success. And it’s a learnable skill.

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This is the last week to enroll in the Public Speaking Catalyst! Have a team member or colleague who’s ready to take the next step? Or maybe you’d like to join us yourself? Sign up today!