Four Questions

I subscribe to Daniel Pink’s newsletter. He sends out newsletters so infrequently that he managed to escape my “unsubscribe” frenzy and besides, I happen to really like his work so that when his most recent newsletter entered my inbox I actually opened it and read it. In his newsletter, he described his idea of interviewing authors (in writing) of books he enjoyed reading by asking them 4 questions about their book – always the same 4 questions. So, since I can’t see Daniel Pink approaching me to interview me about the book I wrote anytime in the near future (even though I would totally love it… Dan, where are you?), I really liked his questions. They made me think I should have tried to answer the questions before I wrote my book but it is already written and published, I thought I’d take a stab at answering them anyway. Here goes…

My book – Courage to Lead: Leadership lessons from Kilimanjaro – emanates from my experience of climbing this magnificent mountain, the tallest in Africa. I share short stories of my climb and draw leadership lessons from each. Each chapter is a quick read (15 minutes on average) and takes the reader through the story, the leadership lesson and some practical exercises to apply the lessons themselves.

So now for the 4 questions:

Q1       What’s the big idea?

Ordinary people can do extraordinary things by paying attention to who they are and what they truly care about.

Climbing Kilimanjaro was an example of that in my life. I’m not sporty, not physically adventurous and definitely get a thrill out of life’s luxuries. For me, the ideal trip is a 5 star hotel in an exotic destination. Climbing Kili was so far out of my comfort zone that it felt truly extraordinary for me to have accomplished that. I came out of the experience with the belief that if I could do that, I can do anything. I wanted to share the gift of that belief with my readers.

Every story contains a metaphor for how we can lead our lives, whether at work or life in general. We can draw on every day experiences to learn and grow ourselves every day.

Q2       How do you know?

My work as an executive leadership coach affords me a glimpse into ordinary people’s stories. I’m often struck by the fact that first impressions lack so much of the depth that exists in a person’s life story. Once I get working with a client I’m always moved by the depth of experience, story and learning that each one of us has access to from our own lives. This led me to research people’s catalytic experiences (defining moments) and how they’ve been shaped by them. My book was my own story of a catalytic experience in my life that resulted in a shift for me.

Q3       Why should we care?

When we recognise our ability as ordinary people to do extraordinary things, we realise that the possibilities are endless.

At the moment, we are bombarded with stories about famous people, media messages about celebrities achieving amazing things and using their fame and resources to contribute to the greater good. But you don’t have to be rich a famous to make a difference in the world. If you do something extraordinary that can inspire one other person to change, you impacted a whole world in itself. By living out our stories, making meaning of them and using them to make a difference, we are already doing extraordinary things.

Every person has that ability and that’s significant enough to care about.

Q4       What should I do?

Start with self-awareness by asking yourself the questions:

·      Who am I?

·      What do I stand for?

·      What do I care about?

Think about how happy you are with your life at the moment (on a scale of 1-10). Are you where you thought you would be at this age, doing the work you thought you’d be doing, surrounded by people you love and who love you?

And for some additional exercises:

Go buy yourself a copy of Courage to Lead, pick a chapter and read it. Then do the exercises and see what you learn about yourself.

You're invited to... unsubscribe

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks furiously unsubscribing from every newsletter that has landed in my inbox. My peak email count was an average of 160 emails a day. My inbox was out of control. Going on a business trip for 3-4 days meant that I came back to more than 600 emails to slog through. I even calculated that even if it takes only 1 second to press delete per email, that’s a full 10 minutes of hitting delete to get rid of the rubbish. But the menial task of binary prioritisation takes longer than 1 second per mail and I’m still left with a substantial amount of emails that actually do need to be addressed.

As I went through the task of unsubscribing, I recognised that I had signed up to some newsletters but many seemed to have just arrived on their own. Then there are the emails that are plain spam with no option to unsubscribe. You’d hope your junk mail filters would take care of them, although mine doesn’t seem to be doing such a good job. Of the 160 per day, there are maybe only 30 that actually need my attention.

I was reluctant to embark on this unsubscribe exercise since I’d done it once before and found that somehow the number of spam emails I received had increased rather than decreased. I also tried creating rules for emails I didn’t want, so that they’d get filtered directly to my Junk folder and when my Mail programme decided to run an update, all my rules were lost. Besides, I began to notice that many newsletters from the same place use different email addresses to send from, perhaps to avoid exactly this kind of filtering system.

Emails are an issue for many of us. I don’t know anyone who complains about getting too few emails. They take up focus, time, energy and headspace. As they arrive, their ping, banner and announcement distract us from our work which makes us lose more focus, energy, time and headspace.

Nonetheless, I decided to allocate some time and go through the exercise of unsubscribing once again and here is what I did:

1.     I chose 5 newsletters that I actually do read every time they land up in my inbox – and I mean every time – no compromises. Those get to stay.

2.     Once the process began an interesting thing happened. I started to feel bad… for the people I know personally who send emails and I’d now unsubscribe – would they know that I had unsubscribed, would they be upset? Regardless, the war on emails continued.

3.     I noticed the newsletters offering the fabulous course or retreat that I would so love to attend… one day. What if I missed out on getting to know about that one retreat that I would actually attend? A bit of FOMO crept in but I continued on.

4.     I noticed the newsletters that I never did subscribe to and wondered how they ever landed up in my inbox.

5.     I noticed the emails that didn’t have an unsubscribe option at all. I created an email rule to filter to junk for these.

Unrelenting, I continued on my mission and realised that there are other ways to stay in touch. For example, you can like Facebook pages instead of subscribing to emails so that if you want to know what is going on, you can actually go to the page and check it out – on your own terms, at your own time

Now that I’m not constantly bombarded with exciting events and promises, I actually feel more focused, happier. I now know that I don’t need to hear about all the events and outings I’m clearly not going to attend, even if they sound wonderful.

While there are definitely newsletters that I’ve unsubscribed from that keep popping back into my inbox, I’ve noticed my daily emails have now reduced to somewhere around 80 and that the number of spam emails has also reduced.

I feel clearer, cleaner and don’t need to get bogged down with facing that dreaded inbox, spending 10 minutes a day hitting the delete button.

I’ve also created a second email address for those times I do want to read an article that requires a sign-in. That inbox can get as full as it likes. I never look at it and no-one else gets that email address.

In the meantime… I invite you to unsubscribe, with these strategies:

1.     Choose 5 to keep

2.     For the rest, unsubscribe

3.     Create a second email address for sign-ups

4.     Sign up on social media to check-in intentionally

5.     Create an email rule to filter spam to junk

6.     Unsubscribe some more

What strategies have worked for you in managing your inbox?

How to revive a habit? 7 blogs in 7 days

 

I decided to set myself a challenge: write 7 blog articles in 7 days. One per day.

The reason for this challenge was to get myself going with writing again. Writing is something I love doing, I have ideas for blog pieces running around in my head every day and yet, the last blog I wrote was two years ago… 2 years ago!

Its funny how quickly you can get out of a habit and stay out of it.

After publishing my book, Courage to Lead (Jacana 2014), I seem to have just stopped writing. As any author will know, writing a book is a gruelling exercise. The deadlines, revisions, rethinking what you want to say and going over every sentence at least ten times before its given the final okay takes time, energy and commitment. In the process you lose loads of sleep and somewhere down the line you can lose enthusiasm for writing and lose some of the passion for your message. In fact, I have a confession to make. I haven’t read my book in its entirety after the final go-ahead to print. It’s something I have really wanted to do but I’ve just lost the energy. With the birth of my book, the launch, the PR, the excitement and sense of achievement something got lost in that I just stopped writing. No blogs, no articles. Just silence…

I’ve been thinking about this over the last months and wondering how to get started again. What will give me that kickstart to launch back into the writing habit?

And two things happened.

Thing 1

I read an article about writing, by Martha Beck, who said that her first draft is always really, really bad. In fact, to get herself going on an article (usually with a deadline) she gives herself the challenge and permission to write the crappiest first draft ever, as long as she puts pen to paper. I decided to use this idea and give myself the challenge and permission to write really bad first drafts, as long as it gets me writing again.

With multiple revisions, you can always fix it, change it, reduce it – but just getting the first draft done is the most powerful step to getting going.

Thing 2

I started having ideas of what to write about rolling around in my head and I began writing down my blog titles, as these ideas came up. The excitement to write began to awaken within me as I realised that each article didn’t need to be very long. It could be a short comment about something that I had noticed in my day or an idea that I wanted to share. A blog piece found its way into my inbox and I decided to do a word count on it. 400 words – that’s how short it was. That’s pretty doable.

But I still wasn’t writing…

This is where the idea of 7 blogs in 7 days came to me. First, it reminded me of the Sting song ‘7 brides for 7 brothers’ and Sting’s music makes me happy. Second, to get a blog article written every day, you have to know that you will only manage really bad first drafts and nothing more. The aim was to spill the ideas on to the page and get my mind working in the direction of writing.

The 7-day challenge was not about posting the blogs. In fact, they would not be ready for posting after 7 days. And there are advantages to this approach besides unblocking my writer’s block. If I wrote 7 blogs and posted one per week, I would have 7 weeks of material taken care of and could continue to write at a much less frenetic pace with a buffer in place. It would get me out of the stuckness and back into the arena. The blogs don’t need to be perfect, just really bad first drafts. I could work on the revisions when I was ready to post them. And finally, a great advantage would be even more material since I’m already planning my 7^th blog which will be what I learnt from the experience.

So here goes… This is Day 1 of 7 blogs in 7 days. Blog 1 is now written. In fact all 7 are written and are filed away as really bad first drafts so stay tuned as I unleash them one at a time.

Now, over to you…

What habit have you let go of that you would like to revive?

How can you create your own 7 xxx (fill in the blank) in 7 days to get you going?

Remember the principles:

1.     Give yourself permission to do a really bad job as a starting point

2.     Just get started – keep it short, keep it simple

3.     Do this really badly for 7 days

4.     See what happens… what needs revision, fixing, publishing, more commitment?

5.     Share your journey in the comments below – I’d love to hear

It's Complicated!

Last week I found myself chatting to my sister about a situation I’ve been dealing with, a complex one. Many times through our discussion, I caught myself saying, “It’s complicated.” After a while she responded, “It’s really not complicated, you’re making it complicated. It’s simple.”

I’ve been pondering that thought for a while. What makes us see things as complicated and what makes them simple? In this example, we clearly had two opposing viewpoints about the same issue. My viewpoint – complicated. My sister’s viewpoint – simple.

And that’s when I had an AHA moment.

What is the opposite of complexity? I had always thought of it as simplicity… Yet, on second thought, I now realise that it is clarity.

When we have clarity, we can cut through complexity and know exactly what we need to do or not do.

Our clarity often gets overtaken by the clutter of our thoughts; by the bombardment of information (some true and some less so) on us; and by the thoughts and expectations of others as we go around asking for advice. This is what gets complicated. Trying to please others. Trying to meet expectations. Trying to do the right thing (according to who?). And not trusting our own inner voice.

When we get clear on who we are, what we want, what would work for us and where we want to get to, the complexity dies down. When we listen to our inner wisdom, we know what we value, what is important and what is significant. We know our own truth. That is clarity. Clarity of thought, emotions and purpose.

Now… it’s not always so simple and definitely not always easy. But when we get clear, we know ourselves and we understand what to do. When we have clarity, we make perfect choices.

It is no surprise then, that when I decided to pick a card for the day today, the one that came up for me was clarity. In the words of Diana Cooper and Greg Stuart (creators of Wisdom Cards),

“Notice the simplicity of truth

and the limitations that complexity places

on your ability to see what is of value.”

The Apology

Today I heard something incredibly moving. It’s not something we hear often and it is probably something that we should hear a lot more. It was an apology. And it moved me to write this blog.

A man, Fernando, called in to the radio this afternoon because he had done something that he was not proud of.

He began by telling the story of his friend’s funeral yesterday. His friend had died in a motorbike accident because he was run off the road by a driver who was talking on his cellphone while driving. Fernando’s friend was riding with his son when he was knocked down. The son survived but his Dad suffered extensive brain damage and died. Fernando’s voice shook with emotion as he described how much his friend had meant to him and how this senseless loss had impacted him. His grief was palpable.

As I listened to Fernando speak, I was thinking – in his emotional state, surely it could be understandable that he had done something he now regrets?

He continued his story by telling us listeners that after the funeral, on his way home, another driver nearly drove into him while she was chatting on her cell phone. His emotions – grief, anger and frustration – just got the better of him. At the next robot, both cars landed up stopping next to each other. He got out of his car and starting screaming at the other driver. He banged on her window and shouted profanities. This was the moment he was not proud of. Through his cloud of grief, he noticed the panicked look on the woman’s face and immediately felt bad for what he had done. At that stage she had driven off leaving him feeling that he needed to find a way to make amends for his behaviour. Remembering that he heard her radio playing the same music that his radio was playing at the time, he called into that same radio station and asked for forgiveness. His voice was filled with regret. He understood that no matter what he was going through, his behaviour was unjustified. Feeling sorry for what he had done was not enough of an action for Fernando. He actually phoned in to the radio station and asked forgiveness of this lady, hoping she would be listening to the same radio station today.

I was moved to tears listening to Fernando’s story. It is a story filled with sadness, grief and courage. Fernando was able to admit his mistake in public, to many listeners, in the hope that he would connect with the one person who needed to hear it. That is power beyond description and its impact is far-reaching.

As I listened to this call, I thought of the many times where I had the thought – let me just make this one quick call even when my car kit hadn’t yet connect to my phone. Or while idling at a robot, sending off a quick text message. How often does it happen that we don’t quite finish typing that message when the robot turns green and just “quickly” finish as we pull off? How often do we hear the beep of a message coming in and say to ourselves “let me quickly read it in case it’s urgent?”

In Fernando’s words… what can be more urgent than someone’s life? Pull over and do what you need to do. Then, drive on.

Fernando, your message was one of absolute courage and power. First to admit your mistake and then to apologise for it. With your act of courage, you also impacted many listeners that day, me included, who will think twice about puling out our phones while we’re driving. We’ve also learnt the power and value of a heartfelt apology.

Thank you for your strong message and for your courage. We can all learn from you. My condolences for your loss. May you find peace and joy again soon.

Women in Leadership - Speaking Out!

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Being an executive coach and an actuary puts me in a unique position. As an actuary, I’m assumed to have a workable level of financial knowledge and as a coach, I’m assumed to be able to guide people to certain levels of understanding, knowledge and awareness. Putting the two together creates an interesting dynamic around creating awareness about finances, our emotional relationship to money and a whole host of how to’s relating to financial savvy. The demographic that seems to require the most input in this area is women… and guess what? I’m a woman too! Putting all this together, often leads people to asking me why I don’t niche myself in this area?

The truth is that when I first went into coaching, that was the niche that struck me as an obvious link between my previous career and this one. You know – a South African Suze Orman of sorts. Yet, I haven’t done it and more importantly I haven’t wanted to do it.

The question I asked myself was – Why? Why don’t I want to create a niche that seems to be a much needed area of development and that I am well placed to do? I’ve given this quite some thought over time and when I came across Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean-In, I had my answer. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, has written a book about what’s holding women back in the workplace. She gives interesting stats about how things haven’t really changed with the times and looks at some of the reasons why, moving away from the traditional arguments about glass ceilings and the like. Her reasoning is that women should embrace success, go for what they want and not fear being direct, forthright, ambitious and confident. The key idea is that – yes – society has a certain way in which it views women, but women have bought into it, lock stock and barrel.

This book was a light-bulb moment for me; it resonated on a deep level. I don’t want to buy into the story that society created about how we view women. I want to create my own story! And so should every other woman on this earth. So this one is for you, woman, what is your purpose? What do you dream of? And what will it take to make it happen?

I’ve seen women being complimented on things they do well and what do they say?

Oh, it was nothing

Really, you think it was good?

No, you do it so much better

Oh! Stop please!

Sounds familiar? How about saying thank you – yes, that took a lot of work and I’m glad it paid off.

In my coaching practice, when working with women, if it happens that I highlight that my client is so busy taking care of everyone else that she isn’t taking care of herself, I get the standard answer – I don’t want to be selfish. I’ve never heard a man say that.

We are buying into the story of feeling uncomfortable with our own power so that we can’t accept compliments easily. We think that taking care of our own needs and going for success is being selfish. Those are some of the things that may be reinforced by society but if we women take them on and start living within this story, we only have ourselves to blame.

Now, I know that I’m generalising and that every person is different. But, for me, creating a niche of working with women on their financial savvy is just buying into a story that women don’t/can’t/won’t take charge of their own finances.

This is a call to all women – take charge of your life, your destiny and your power. In Sheryl Sandberg’s words… Lean In! Now that is a message I resonate with.

A little voice from heaven... This one's for you, Bruce!

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My previous blog post – I am Done! (blogpost: I-am-Done) seems to have resonated with many. I keep getting messages about how much people could relate to this post and how this particular article challenged them to think about what they are done with… Thanks for the feedback guys, it means a lot!

In this blog, I want to reflect on one piece of feedback that I received that made my day. After a particularly long day that ended with a challenging call from someone close to me, offering what seemed like criticism on something I had done, I put the phone down, only to hear it ring again. The first thought that ran through my mind was… shew! When is this going to end? On the other side of the line, I heard an unfamiliar voice who said – is this Daphna? I’m not sure if you’ll remember me but I’m Bruce, we met a couple of years ago. Of course I remembered Bruce straight away - we had met briefly and chatted about coaching more than two years back. Bruce then went on to tell me that he felt compelled to call me after reading an article I had written that he really enjoyed. He understood that people often write without knowing who is reading and what the impact of our writing is and he felt moved to call me to give me his feedback. I was blown away that he had made this effort and I asked which article it was that he was referring to? He immediately said – the one called ‘I am done!’ He continued to say that this article had caused him to think about his own circumstances and that he was ready to take up the challenge of ‘what are you done with?’ He said some beautiful and encouraging words and eventually we ended the call hoping that our paths would cross again in future.

There are two aspects to Bruce’s call that meant so much to me and caused me to reflect.

The first aspect was that his call came at a real low point in my day when I felt that I was dealing with a whole lot of nonsense that was just being thrown at me – one thing after another. When I paused to reflect on the sequence of events, I truly saw this as a little voice from heaven reminding me of my own words – I am done! I immediately realised that I could choose what to take on and what not to. There were elements of my day that were mine to sort through and there were elements of my day that I was throwing right back to the thrower! I am done with that! And the message came with impeccable timing.

Lets all begin to notice those messages that seem to come just at the right moment to remind us of something important we may have forgotten. Everyone gets their own little voice from heaven.

The second aspect was that here was Bruce, reading an article on the internet that he enjoyed but he didn’t stop at that. He went on to make a call to pay a compliment to the writer – moi! How often do we stop what we’re doing to pay a compliment to someone else for something that they did really well? From the way I felt, I can tell you that Bruce’s gesture meant the world to me – so why don’t we do this more often? And… when someone does pay us a compliment, how often do we brush it off and think – they don’t really mean it, it wasn’t a big deal! At the very least we can stop to appreciate the complimentor’s efforts and intention. A further step would be to give more compliments ourselves. Go out and begin telling people what you appreciate about them.

Thank you, Bruce, for reminding me of the power of a compliment, for taking the time and effort to make that call and for being the little voice from heaven, reminding me of exactly what I needed to remember at that moment!

I am done.