Transcripts
1. Mind Introduction: Now that we've got the
basics of leadership clear, It's time to explore your primary leadership
tool, your mind. How often have you
heard the expression? It's all in the mind. It's usually used to suggest
something isn't real. But in reality, our
entire experience of life is played
out in our minds. When we see and
hear someone else, those impressions
operate in our minds, not out there somewhere. The way we feel, which is central to our
experience of life, is felt in our minds
and nowhere else. So this section explores in
very simple subjective terms, how our minds work. The relationship between
thinking and feeling, and what really lies behind
the way we make decisions. If your mind is so important, you need to know how
to look after it to keep it clear,
rested, and focused. You need to keep
it in great shape. We'll be looking at how
we do this in practice. Clearly, decision-making is
a critical leadership skill. Yet the way we really make decisions can come
as a surprise, particularly to
managers that are generally logical and
rational thinkers. So if you think you
make logical decisions, prepared to change your mind. Of course, we all
have feelings and emotional side to our makeup
that can help or hinder us. So we explore the impact that emotions can have on us
and how to make sure that strong emotions
do not overwhelm us and make us do things
we might not normally do. Maintaining good
emotional baseline is fundamental to
good leadership. Resting our minds well is a skill that is
vital to leadership. This is where self-knowledge
helps us maintain balance in our emotions and thinking
through good quality rest. The better the
quality of our rest, the better the
quality of our work. Then we move on to the
hot topic of purpose, which at last is
being recognized as just as important as profit. Making good profits
is necessary, but increasingly not enough. Unless we have clarity of personal and
organizational purpose, our activity, whatever it
is, becomes unsustainable. Finally, we take a look at the
most powerful faculty that every human has a one that
is frequently underutilized. It's responsible for every
man-made thing you see around you and can rightly
be considered a superpower. Continue with the course
to find out what it is.
2. How Your Mind Really Works: It's a funny thing. How we humans spend so much time looking
out into the world, trying to make it
a better place. We don't seem to be having much success at the moment, do we? Many of us spend all our time focused on the world around us, but very little time
on the world inside. And by this, I mean our
minds are thinking, feeling, and perception, our imagination,
intellect, and identity. We use all of these things, but we don't know
much about them. In contrast, we know a
lot about our bodies. We know how to feed
them properly, allocate them fit and healthy. Whether we do or not
is another matter, but we know how to. We could food, we
get the right amount of sleep, plenty of exercise. Those of us who follow
these simple rules now, it makes you feel a whole lot better than eating too much, smoking, drinking, and
watching Netflix all day. But how many of us take the
same care of our minds? Do you choose carefully
what you allow into your mind as you might
choose what food you eat. You let your mind
rest properly or keep it going full speed all
the time we're awake. Let's look at what's
in our minds. The first thing we
notice is the thinking. Lots of it. Take this thought, I'm late for my job interview and
let it sit with you. Imagine you're applying for your dream job and you're
running late for the interview. That's a thought. Now notice how that
makes you feel. It could be anything
from a mile sense of urgency to blind panic. You might have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The next thing you notice about your mind is that
thoughts create feelings. You can't seem to have
one without the other. Sometimes the feelings will
be strong, sometimes weak. But generally they go with the thought like two
sides of the same coin. So thinking will change
the way you fail. This is really important. It means that you can
change the way you fail, by changing the way
that you think. But what about circumstances? Let's say your bank
account is hacked, That's going to make
you feel pretty bad regardless of how
you think, isn't it? Well now, the same rules apply. The event triggers, thoughts
which produce feelings. You still have a choice
which thought to think. One being, oh God,
all my money's gone, I'm gonna be broken homeless or a benefit in the bank and
find out what's going on. Both will create very
different feelings. Another really important
aspect of our minds is that thinking
multiplies thoughts, create more thoughts, which
create more thoughts, and so on forever. There's no end to the stream
of thoughts. We can think. Some are very obvious, some difficult to
spot, and others, according to psychologists, are below the radar subconscious. That's a great
thing. It gives us access to an infinite
stream of creativity. Just what we need to solve problems and make things better. But what if you want
to stop thinking? What if it all gets too much? And you want to break? This kind of
uncontrolled thinking is what keeps people
awake at night and can develop into anxiety and even serious
mental health issues. Well, we can't stop thinking. In fact, tried to stop thinking just creates
more thinking. The only way of getting away
from the cycling thoughts in your head is to focus
on something else. But there's one other thing that you need to know
about your mind. You are not your mind. All the thoughts and
feelings that it creates. Your real identity goes
beyond any mental activity. That's great news because
it means that you can disconnect from thinking
if you know how. It also means that you can
change what you choose to believe about yourself
and the world around you. This is called neuroplasticity. As Henry Ford said, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. So to summarize, thoughts and feelings are two sides
of the same coin. You won't stop thinking, but you can pay attention
to something else. And finally, you are not your
thoughts or your feelings.
3. Decision Making for Leaders: In the nineties, the
neuroscientist Antonio Damasio wrote about how brain injuries
affect decision-making. He found that when the injury
affected how people felt, it made it difficult for
them to take decisions. One patient was left without, without the ability to feel
normal human emotions. He couldn't feel happy, sad, good, or bad about anything. But he was still
able to analyze and rationalize any situation
so he could think, but he could no longer feel. When he returned to work, it became clear that
something wasn't quite right. He could present
all the options of possible outcomes
in a situation, but he could no longer
make recommendations, no longer take a decision. His problem extended to the most trivial of tasks such as
choosing a restaurant. He just couldn't do it. There have been many such cases. Now. Many are convinced that
we only make rational, logical decisions
unaffected by emotion. If you're one of them,
I have news for you. You're wrong. None of your decisions
are logical. They are exclusively
based on how you feel. Take those feelings away and you'll be left unable to decide. There is no such thing as a logical decision
in the human mind. So what does that mean? Can we forget
rationale and logic? Absolutely not. We still have to do all the
reasoning and analysis. Remembering that all it does is change how we feel
about the issue. And it's the feeling that
will drive our decisions. So what? Well, given that
managers can be the first to discount their
feelings in any situation. This inside is telling us that we really need to tune into our feelings and understand
them, not neglect them. You can start to
practice this right now. Just pause this
video in a moment. Sit back, close your eyes and ask yourself what
you are feeling. Be aware that it's
easy for people with a scientific or
engineering background to mistake thoughts
for feelings. If you come up with, I feel
this doesn't make sense. That's a thought, not a feeling. The feeling might
be, I feel confused. Ask yourself where you feel
it and what it's like. Is it pleasant or unpleasant?
How strong is it? Get familiar with it?
If you practice this, you'll get better at tuning into an identifying
the feelings. This is a great skill to have as feelings are there
to tell you about the experiences that you have and the thoughts that
you pay attention to. It also makes sense that if our decisions are
based on feelings, the more sensitive
we are to them, the better our
decisions will be.
4. Build Emotional Resilience: When feelings get intense, they can really move us. Maybe that's why this type of
feeling is called emotion. They put us in motion. Sometimes in a good
way, sometimes not. You all have experienced as
we all have emotion that overwhelms us and can drive
us to do silly things. Sometimes things that we regret for the
rest of our lives. Emotionally driven
behavior is generally, maybe not always, but
usually unhelpful. Losing your temper with someone rarely does the
relationship any good. And in leadership, it can
cause real trouble destroying the trust people have in you and their willingness
to follow you. Imagine the emotions of
your ideal leader or boss. You'd want someone who is
calm, relaxed, clear headed. You wouldn't want to be shouted out or criticized negatively. You wouldn't want to be
frightened of upsetting them. When you're nervous of
your boss's behavior, you probably won't be
doing your best work. Here's an example of where
being in charge of yourself comes before being in charge
of anything or anyone else. So when you're the boss, you're going to want to be
in charge of your emotions, not have them in charge of you. How do you do it? Well, the good news
is that if you haven't learned to
manage them yet, doing so, it's very simple, but simple doesn't
always mean easy. So the first thing to do is to constantly remind yourself
that you are in charge. What are the feelings or
emotions are running? You remember that you are
separate from them and that you will only go with them should you choose to do so. The second thing is to
be on the alert for rising emotions at work. The most common negative
emotions we experience, our fear and anger. When they start to bubble up, give them your full attention. Notice them, do not
ignore or suppress them. Remember, feeling and emotion is not the same
as expressing it. Thirdly, instruct
yourself not to externalize the emotion.
Keep it personal. Feelings are yours. They are not anyone
else's business unless you choose to meet them. So express only com. If you find the rising
emotion overwhelming, start to breathe
deeply and slowly. This might sound a bit woo-woo, but as well as many ancient
systems like yoga that recommended modern research has also shown it to
be very effective. It works. If you realize you are in
danger of losing control, just disengage and walkaway. There will always be
another opportunity. But if you lose your sense
of calm, there may not be. If you practice
these three steps, you'll find that your
emotional response will start to gradually come
under your control. It may not happen immediately, but it will happen if you
persist and do the work. Exactly the same
process works for Thea. The difference being
that anger often provokes us into doing
something we shouldn't. Whereas fear does
the opposite and can stop us doing
things that we should. There are many other factors that impact emotional
resilience. But the single most important
one is remaining alert to our feelings so we can spot them before
they take control. Now, you may be saying, but this isn't an issue for me. I'm always calm and relaxed. Well, if so, good for
you, I'm delighted. But if you really are completely resilient
to situations and people never reacting with
even the mildest irritation, then I suspect is because you
are already very aware of your emotions and well-practiced noticing them without
expressing them. Another way of
looking at this is to realize that we have
little or no control over the situations that
we find ourselves in and the behavior
of people around us. But we have full control over our own behavior if we
choose to exercise it. So let's focus on what we can change to make
our lives better. Dot on what we can't. As leaders, we need to
choose Intelligent responses to situations, not
knee-jerk reactions. So don't let old patterns of behavior hijack the situation.
5. Balance Work and Rest: Work-life balance is the
focus of much interest today. But when you look at the
concept more closely, it doesn't make much sense. It's suggesting that when you're living, you're not working. And when you're
working, you're dead. Now I get that workers felt like that for everyone at times. But if it feels like
that all the time, it may be time to do
something different. Anyhow, the real balance to be had is between work and rest. You can only work so much
before you need a rest. Now we all know what
work and rest are. But the problem is for
so many people that they don't get any real rest. Let me give you an example. Joe spends all day at work and packs up at 530 to go home. He gets in his car and
drives to the gym. Neither driving, no
working out our work. But they're not rest either. He goes home, chats to
his partner over a beer, makes dinner, which
they eat together. Again, not work, but
not rest either. After-dinner. They both CDO couple
of emails and then watch a movie,
still no rest. Then they go to bed and sleep. Finally some rest. But Joe spends the
night having nightmares about a project that's
over budget and late. He wakes up exhausted. He didn't get much rest at all. The point is that what
we think of as rest, not working isn't really rests at all because our
minds are still active. Even during sleep. All of us need real rest, which only happens
when we are using our minds as little as possible. So how do we get it? The most effective way is
through meditative practices. When you sit down, close your eyes and observe your breath or some
other point of focus. You disconnect
from your thinking and things gently get quieter. There is a meditation
exercise included in this course that you
can download and try. Regular meditation improves
emotional balance, mental clarity, and many
report needing less sleep. But meditation is not the only
way to get some good Rest. Good music and art
can also be used to allow the incessant mental
activity to die down. Also, walking in
natural surroundings, hills, mountains,
woods, fields, etc. The other myth around rest
is that the more you do, the more you achieve, the less you rest, the
more successful you are. This is simply not true. You might have noticed that at work your job is never finished. There's always
something else to do. Work is very abundant. You never run out of it. So there's always
the need to say, I've done enough,
it's time to go home. If you go beyond
a certain point, you start to become less
and less efficient. The best time to stop work is when you could still
comfortably do more. Of course, there are
times when we need to pull out all the stops and
work six days or weeks. But this has to be the
exception, not the norm. The pandemic lockdown
has introduced a whole new dimension into this balance where many of
us are working from home. Now there's no commute, no meetings to travel to, and only one office
that you ever visit. It's quite easy to
spend long periods of time glue to your laptop screen. Clearly, this is
not particularly healthy and the only
solution is to be very disciplined and making
sure that you get regular breaks to move
and stretch your body. A morning yoga routine is ideal when space and
equipment is limited. There are many suitable
routines available on YouTube. Download a list of examples
to see if any suit you. So to summarize, remember
to balance your work with good-quality rest and don't believe that the
harder you work, the more you'll achieve.
6. Work on Purpose: Why do you work? Is it for the money, for the glory will just to
keep you out of mischief. Well, most of us have to generate some income
to pay the bills. But if you've ever worked
only for the money, you all know it's a pretty
short-term strategy. Try this thought experiment. Imagine you've been hired to dig a hole and fill it in again. Dig another hole and
fill that one in, and keep going digging holes and filling them in again
and again full-time, 35 hours a week. But you get 30 days
holiday per year, health insurance, generous
pension benefits, and wait for it. $0.5 million a year pay. That's nearly $10
thousand a week. Not bad. The question is, how long
would you do it for? Could you keep it going until you get a better paying job? Or would you crash
out after a few days? My hunch is that
most of us could only last a few
weeks at the most. Not because it was physical. You'd get used to it
after a while and there are plenty of
opportunities to rest. No, you'd lose interest and
get very bored very quickly. Why? Because earning
money is not enough. It may be necessary, but it's not sufficient. As human beings, we need more. We need to feel valuable that we are contributing to
something worthwhile. We need a job with
meaning and purpose. Lot of talk about
purpose right now. We're trying to build
businesses that have purpose lead instead
of profit lead businesses that put what they do ahead of the money they make. And that's a great
thing. But the need for purpose doesn't just
apply to organizations. It must also apply to the
people in the organization. Unless they feel aligned to the purpose of their
team or employer, their income won't be enough to satisfy their need for
meaning and fulfillment. So what is purpose exactly? Well, for me it's a feeling
of being valuable and valued, of having worth
as a human being. We generate that
feeling by doing things that are valued by
ourselves and others. Now, when we can
do things we liked doing that fulfill our need for purpose and pay the bills. Then all the boxes are ticked. And the chances are we'll have an enjoyable and
worthwhile career. But for many of us,
that's not the case. Many people do jobs
they don't really like and don't get much
satisfaction from. And they stay in them because
from their perspective, they can't see any options. They feel trapped. How do we as leaders approach
this dimension of purpose? The first thing you do
is ensure that you're working in alignment with
your own sense of purpose. Do you love what you do? Is it valuable to
you and the world? Do you do what you do
because you really want to. Some of us are doing things because other people
wanted us to, our parents or school teachers. And that's never a
recipe for success. If you're not quite sure
about your sense of purpose, the project included with
this class will help you. The next thing to ensure
is as far as you can, that your immediate team is
also working on purpose. How it's as simple
as asking them, sit them down and find out how, what they do gives them a
sense of value and worth. You'll soon discover it's quite difficult to lie
about these things. One of the worst things
we can do as a leader is keep someone in a job that
doesn't fulfill them. It's very easy to do exactly that by using salary increases. Using salary to compensate someone for the lack
of fulfilment they get from their job is
demeaning and dehumanizing. Either the job needs changing
or the person doing it. Remember that one
person's dream job is another nightmare. There's probably at
least one person that would dig in
filling holes full time. As a leader, your job is to
make sure first and foremost, that you're working on
purpose and that you get a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from doing your job, as well as the salary to match. Your next job is to make sure that the same is
true for your team. Once everyone is working
more or less on purpose, the team will be much easier to manage and more successful to. Of course, it's
always their choice. But why make it more
difficult for them to find another job by pricing them
out of the job market. Finally, be sure to remind
yourself and your team what your collective purposes and what value you're
delivering to the world. If you can't do that, you may have some
thinking to do.
7. Use Your Super-Power: Take a look around
you right now. And what do you see? Chances are you'll be in a
well-lit room, nice and warm. Sat on the chair at a desk looking at a computer screen
with your phone nearby. Of the five objects
I've just mentioned, plus heating and lighting. All are the product of the greatest human
app ever developed. The result of countless
years of evolution. I'm talking about
your imagination. Everything you can
see around you, with the exception
of living things, started life in
someone's imagination. Imagination is our superpower. Not just for artists,
writers, poets, musicians, and engineers, but every
human being on the planet, if they choose to use it. Our imagination can be
building a station on Mars one minute and creating
a new recipe the next. It has no limits. At least if it has, we are not aware of them. Use your imagination right now to take the
face of someone you know and start to
age it in your mind. Now, make it ugly. Now make it pleasant again. See what I mean. Some
people's imaginations are more developed than others. Beethoven was able to write entire symphonies without
being able to hear. He was stone deaf later in life. Presumably he was able to imagine the sound of
the music he wrote. Einstein said, Imagination is more
important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. He certainly knew how
to use his imagination. In the ancient traditions of India which gave birth to yoga, imagination and memory are
seen as closely related. The difference being that
memory is fixed in the past, imagination has yet to manifest and it's
completely fluid. Just like any human faculty, the more you use it,
the better it gets. So how do we develop our imaginations and make
them even more creative? The first step is to allow the mind to quieten
down a little. We can do this by
sitting quietly, eyes closed and watching
the thoughts arise and subside and our minds with
no agenda, just watch. Then take a project
that you have not yet begun and start to
build it in your mind. Imagine it taking shape. Perhaps imagine the
end result first and then imagine all the steps
you need to get there. Don't write anything down. Give your imagination the
chance to do everything. I did this recently to design
an astronomical telescope. Instead of using
a piece of paper, I did as much as I
could in my mind. At first it was very difficult, but it soon became easier. Eventually it became fun. Now, imagination isn't limited to designing systems,
mechanisms, and structures. We can imagine how things feel, taste, smell, and sound. We can also imagine feelings. Imagining feelings is
a very powerful use of the imagination because
we can use it to replace a fading we
don't like, say, for instance, you wake up
one morning, you feel tired, it's cold, wet and dark outside, and the day holds nothing
exciting for you. You feel rather depressed
about the whole situation. Now, imagine feeling energetic, excited, and looking
forward to the day ahead. You felt like that in the past. So you can recall the
failing using your memory, using your imagination, you can recreate the failings
and even intensify them. The feelings you imagine are no different
from other feelings. You still feel them. So in other words, you
can use your imagination to replace any failings
that you don't like. Don't believe me.
Try it and see. With practice you can make
your feelings progressively more independent of the
situation you find yourself in. Now that is a superpower. Indeed. The imagination, however, is no different from
any other tool. It can be used for good and bad. So you're waiting to hear
confirmation from a client that your proposal has been
approved, it's late. You start thinking
what could have gone wrong or they're going
to cancel the project. Are they going to use
another supplier? Was your proposal good
enough? What about the price? Was it too expensive
or maybe too cheap? They will certainly cancel. Which will mean
you'll have to cut some overheads which
will affect the quality of future proposals and which could have a serious
impact on the business, and so on and so on. You get the picture. This anxiety is an
example of using your imagination to create
something you don't want. If you practice this
kind of self-abuse, you will get better at it. Ultimately, people can develop
clinical anxiety or worse. So don't confuse
worry with planning. Planning for worst-case
scenarios can avoid disasters. But replaying the
unwanted outcome in your mind over and
over is not planning. That's anxiety. So to summarize, your imagination is a
very powerful tool. Use it to build what you want, not what you don't
want you to feel, how you want to feel. Be careful not to use
it against yourself.
Chris Pearse, Leadership Inside Out
