Showing posts with label Entrepreneur Mindset. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entrepreneur Mindset. Show all posts
By Nan Nan Liu-Maffetone | Strong Female Leaders | Reading Time: Five Minutes
The first step in adopting a servant leadership style is to embrace the idea that your team members work for themselves and have the choice to leave anytime they want. Your job as a leader, then, is to ensure that team members feel valued, appreciated and sufficiently challenged, so that they can maximize productivity and feel accomplished, while they work for the same organization as you do. As a servant leader, your job is to fulfill your team's needs and wants. In other words: the larger your teams are, the more people you must prioritize before yourself. Shedding the traditional top-down mindset might be hard at first, if that is all you have been exposed to, but be open-minded. If you are ready to start the new servant leadership journey and become the type of leader that others both trust and respect, then scroll down to learn about important servant leadership activities.


1. Be the newbie.
Senority does not mean that you know it all. In fact, the more senior you are, the larger the disconnect between you and the teams that produce actual value. A smart leader knows his or her limits, including how much there is to learn. If you want to serve your teams well, pretent that you are new to the organization and be ready to learn, even if the learning includes getting your hands dirty.
Also remember to be genuine. If you ask questions or seek feedback with alterior motives such as conducting temperature checks, guiding conversations to flaunt your own knowledge and testing team members, please stop. Knowledge professionals see through fakeness rightaway. If you lose their trust, you will never get it back.
2. Add the question "how can I help you" in front of every request to the team.
A go-getter like yourself always does her best and expects the same from everyone else. However, your passion may come off as demanding or even unreasonable if you do it without considering others' needs. Next time you make a request to the team, put the question "how can I help you" in front of it. For example, instead of telling your team to "complete objectives 5 and 6 by quarter end," ask "how can I help you complete objectives 5 and 6 by quarter end?" This way, you are not barking orders, you are helping a cause. In turn, instead of seeing you as just a manager who is executing a set of tasks, your team will see you as an inspirational leader who is earning respect.
3. Take action.
Making big bold promises breeds skepticism when you don't take the actions that make them come true. As a leader, your words should be gold, and if you promise to serve your team, then you better serve them well. Take small but forward-moving actions such as meeting with every team member to gain an insight to his or her daily struggles, giving kudos to deserving team members, and take others' ideas seriously to truly honor innovation.
A goal without action is just a day dream. It's frail, fruitless and a waste of time. When you take action, no matter how small the step, you move closer to the end goal and build trust along the way.

4. Create a safe space.
People's ideas and opinions are valuable. The fact that they even expose them to you means that they respect you as both a professional and a person. Of course you might not agree with everything they say, but at least give them a safe and non-judgemental place in which they can freely express their thoughts. People want to be heard, and it is up to you, the leader, to create an environment that allows them to speak freely.
5. Always operate in the "servant mode."
As capable, self-managing and highly educated as today's knowledge professionals are, they still need a dedicated resource to help facilitate daily activities, remove impediments and fulfill emotional needs.
Should you stop asking for more from the team? Of course not. Deadlines, financial goals and other profit-related essentials are as concrete and real as before. The difference is to always make the ask in a "servant mode." Prioritize team members' needs like interests, skill sets and career development in paralell with organizational priorities. For example, if you need to request for overtime to achieve a specific deadline from a team member who is a young parent, allow a few days of personal time off after the project is completed. Everyone is motivate by something. It is your job to find out what it is and fulfill both it, and what the organization needs.
As a servant leader of knowledge professionals, you can no longer simply carry out tasks and request for outcomes. You have to think on a higher level and operate more strategicly, so that both the organization and its valuable talents walk away in a win-win situation.
In every way, servant leaders are strategic negociators, and being able to operate in a "servant mode" is a prized skill.
Parting Thoughts
As a servant leader, you manage the relationship between your team and the organization. When the relationship becomes toxic, it is up to you to turn the ship around. It is up to you to show compassion, do the honest thing, convey bad news, facilitate discussions and problem solving, listen and take action, empower individuals, honor people's ideas, and build trust. [ End of Article ]

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By Chistopher O. | Strong Female Leaders | Reading Time: Five Minutes

Mindfulness is a person's ability to be fully present to what is happening. Mindlessness, then, happens when our minds wander off. soon, we lose touch with everything around us, and start worrying about the future, sulking in the past, and grow negative in attitude. Being mindful can help us become better at our relationships, careers and life. If you are looking for ways to become more mindful, the books below are great ways to start. Not only do they help you become more mindful, they are enjoyable reads as well.


Top 5 Servant Leadership Books by Women
1) Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day by Jay Shetty
Social media expert and the host of the no. 1 podcast on purpose, Jay Shetty, shares the timeless wisdom that he learned from living as a monk and provides practical steps that help us live more mindfully and meaningfully. In the book, you will learn how to overcome anxieties, avoid becoming too critical, conquor fear, learn more, and find the purpose of living. With the hope to inspire and empower others, Shetty wrote and published THINK LIKE A MONK in order to inspire and empower others too improve people's lives and relationship with others.
If you feel stressed, pressured and constantly unhappy, then this books can be a way to initiate a better and healthier lifestyle.
2) The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive
In this science-based workbook, you will find a step-by-step method for creating a life of self care and self love. Often, we are kinder to others than to ourselves, and such practice and mindset will only destroy our own self esteem. By motivating and teaching ourselves to cultivate our own well-being, we can become better, stronger and more empowered. Self-compassion isn't selfish. Instead, it allows you to grow into a stronger person who can then lift others up.
3) The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams
In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu met up with Dalai Lama to celebrate to not only celebrate Dalai Lama's eightieth birthday but also to write a book that they would present as a gift to others. They turned their own life experiences into the answer to a burning question that many of us have: how to find joy in life? From intimate personal stories to spiritual guidances to ways to find joy during despair, this books offers a way to find "true joy" when confronted with life's inevitable tragedies. Not only is this book a rare opportunity for two unique and amazing minds to collaborate, it teaches lessons that we can pass on to the next generation. Most importantly, it helps us navigate through a world of angst, hurt and dissapointments and find meaning and happiness.

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By Nan Nan Liu-Maffetone | Strong Female Leaders | Reading Time: Five Minutes
Setbacks are a part of life, and they happen to everyone. Instead of focusing on the hurt and dissapointment you feel, focus on how to move past the mistakes, and come out better and stronger. In today's article, you will find practical methods for how to turn setbacks into comebacks. You will also gain a healthy dose of empowerment.


When you follow a lifelong dream and finally make it come true, what happens when things do not turn out as planned?
We’ve all been there at some point in our lives. When new jobs, career paths or relationships get off track, we have to face the losses. Sure, these situations can make us feel like failures at first, but when emotions reside, we begin to solve issues, set new goals, and make progress again. Strong female leaders do not succumb to difficulties. They rethink their strategies and turn setbacks into combacks instead. The methods below can help you do the same:
1. Play it safe? That's not you.
The loftier your goals are, the bigger the gamble you take and the more mistakes you could make. So you might as well commit to having a mindset of failing forward. Once your mind is made up, you operate with a clearer head and are able to focus on the bigger goals and the ultimate vision.
2. Give yourself a time limit to feel bad.
Everyone needs space to deal with disapointment and hurt. When you deny yourself the time to grieve and reflect, you deny yourself the ability to shed emotional baggage. This in turn makes moving forward harder to do.
If you are afraid of getting stuck in an emotional rut, then put a time limit on the grieving. Commit to a day, a week, or even a year if needed. After the allowance has been exhaused, move on by taking the lessons learned and focuing on the facts (what went well, what went wrong, and so on). And make sure you leave all of the emotions behind.
3. Focus on the next win.
Winners move forward, one small step at a time. When you are just picking yourself back up, you might not want to take giant leaps rightaway or think too far ahead. Sure, the big picture still looms in the background. Right now, however, focus on how to get back on the saddle and get moving. Set small, achievable goals, and focus on reaching them one at a time. When you have gained enough confidence, then consider taking a bigger leap.
4. Don't sugarcoat, just learn.
Confidence cannot be faked. When you've failed and hurt your pride, you might really want to self-aggrandice just to feel better. However, facing the situation stoicly may be a better approach.
To regain confidence and avoid self-soothe, one action you can take is to draw out the lessons learned from the experience and attach a value to each one. For example: if you lost a 5-figure account because you were overly ambitious, what would happen if next time, you progressed more steadily and kept the account for the long term? How much more profit will you gain? And there you go! A 5-figure loss just turned into a 5-figure education.
Gaining concrete value from failed pursuits adds a huge boost to confidence. But if you sugarcoat it, you may not reclaim enough inner strength to move on properly.
5. Control your self-talk.
The self-doubt you experience from setbacks can pollute your life, if you let it. During the tender recovery period, it is crucial that you manage how you speak to the person in the mirror. Stay focused on your strengths, values, and goals. Keep your mind focused, sharp and positive. In time, all wounds heal, if you treat them conscientiously.
Parting Thoughts
Setbacks happen to everyone. In fact, the more successful you want to be, the more setbacks you will experience. While we all understand how resilience and adaptability help overcome setbacks, it’s still handy to have clear steps to follow. The approaches above can transform the self-doubt associated with failure into fresh hopes and dreams. So don't let setbacks hold you back. Instead, turn them into comebacks.

1) Keep your mindset positive with Mindset Book

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By Nan Nan Liu-Maffetone | Strong Female Leaders | Reading Time: Five Minutes
Work can be stressful, especially for a knowledge worker like you. Among all of the things that you cannot control, including absurd deadlines, demanding team members, and gruelig workload, there is one thing that you can control, and it is becoming mentally tough. In today's article, you will gain an understanding of what it takes to be mentally tough at work.


Work can be stressful.
Especially for today's knowledge workers, who are continuously connected, often distracted, and constantly under pressure. Taking work home is the norm; yet still, you can barely keep up. There are many factors that are out of your control; however, there is one thing that you can control, and that is becoming mentally tough.
Lucky for you, mental toughness can be cultivated and built over time. It takes a while to fully grasp, so let's get started right away. Below are a few ways, including daily rituals and habits, on how to become mentally tough at work:
1. Concentrate on making improvements.
When projects go awry, emotions tend to boil. While most of your team members are feeling anxious, angry or confused, you have an opportunity to step up as a leader by helping everyone move forward. Instead of looking at everything that went wrong, how awful the consequences will be, or how upset you feel, focus on how to improve the situation. This may be difficult to do during high stakes situations, but if you have the mental toughness to focus on the positive, you can certainly push through the agony.
To prepare yourself to gracefully push through any ardous situation, each morning, make the choice to keep cool all day. Committing yourself to taking on a cool, collected and take-charge persona, first thing in the morning, sets the tone for the rest of the day. If it helps, stand in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eye. Then, say the words, "You are a leader. You will focus on making improvements. You are mentally tough." This ritual may sound strange, but it works, because saying those words crystalizes your commitment.
2. Find meaning during adversities.
The ability to find meaning during difficult times and emerge a stronger person says a lot about your character. In fact, great female leaders like Oprah Winfrey and Eleanor Roosevelt emerged during the most trying of experiences. Instead of giving up, they stood up to adversities by creating a narrative around the challenges, looking at the situation from an educational angle, and viewing obstacles as problems to solve.
Again, it is all about choice. Great leaders make the choice, the commitment, to interpret adverse experiences as opportunities. If you do the same, you will find that there is nothing you cannot conquer. So the next time you are faced with adversity, ask yourself, "how can I learn from this?"
3. Learn to be contextually intelligent.
Mental toughness is often known as the "survival of the fittest," which depends on your ability to adapt to difficult situations, by applying creativity to transcend adversity.
If you want to adapt well and do it quickly, you must learn to be contextually intelligent. Contextual intelligence is defined as "the ability to understand the limits of your knowledge and to adapt that knowledge to an environment different from the one in which it was developed." It requires exposing yourself to different environments and being open to new ideas.
An easy way to learn to be contetxtually intelligent is to ask questions, and with the intention to learn. Truly focus on the person's answer, and see things from his or her point of view. A little empathy and undersanding goes a long way. If you are open to new ideas, opinions and solutions, you not only develop contextual intelligence, you become a voice of reason.
4. Seek Feedback.
Feedback leads to concrete improvements. As you move further in your career and gain more influence, you will be exposed to more critiques. Why not start a habit of seeking for feedback early, so you can train yourself to accept criticism graciously.
Actively seeking feedback provides opportunities to learn and make improvements. So be proactive about it and truly listen to the underlying issues that frame the feedback. By the way, nonverbal cues such as body language and micro-expressions also count as feedback.
The more accepting you are to others' opinions, the tougher you become.
5. Shoot for small wins.
Mentally tough people understand the power of small wins. While they make ambitious goals, they achieve these goals by making marginal, systematic and incremental improvements. Shooting for small wins relieves the pressure of having to achieve overwhelming goals, and allows you to focus on specific and manageable advancements.
Each small improvement may feel insignificant; collectively, however, small improvements create powerful progress. Before you know it, you have already accomplished that big, overwhelming goal.
Parting Thoughts
To be mentally tough in the workplace, you need to both commit to and practice for it. When you feel frustrated, pressured and anxious, take a moment and revisit the points above. Focus on the positives and try to turn challenges into opportunities. Your ability to thrive from adversities can be your super power, with which you can use to strengthen yourself and everyone around you.

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By Christopher O | Strong Female Leaders | Reading Time: Five Minutes
What do successful people do on the weekends? In today's article, you will find the 10 habits of urber successful people on the weekends that set them apart from the ordinary.


Ever wonder what successful people do on the weekends?
To continue to achieve high levels of success, they do what others are not willing to do. That doesn't mean they work around the clock during personal time. In fact, taking time to relax, decompress, and work on hobbies are highly recommended; because these activities contribute to people's overall productivity. Successful people spend their down time on activities that enhance personal, educational and career growth, provide mental fulfillment, and set the tone for a successful week ahead.
10 Habits of Successful People on the Weekends
1. They turn off their phones.
Successful people use their smart phones quite a bit during the work days because of productivity and communication needs. On the weekends, however, they turn off those devices, in order to save time by not being "on" all the time. While technology is a crucial part of doing business today, it can also create an unhealthy addiction. Successful people treat their mobile devices like work computers: when they are away from work, they turn their phones off.
2. They spend time with their families
Successful people understand the sacrifices that they must make to achieve success. Duriing the work week, they may need to work overtime, travel, and stay out with clients. They may miss out on kids' games, have to re-schedule anniversary dates, and miss school events. Therefore, they intentionally resserve time during the weekends to make it up to their families. Making time to strengthen important relationships keeps successful people grounded and remind them of why they strive hard to succeed in the first place.
3. They give back to their communities.
Wheter their communitiess are faith-based, hobby-oriented or business-related, they give back. They not only give back by in monetary forms, they also give their time. They understand the value of paying it forward, and never for one minute take for granted that their success came from the support of their communities.

4. They read.
Leaders are readers. Successful people take time to ready, so they can enable knowledge base, think outside the box, make better decisions, enhance mindfulness, and improve communication skills.
5. They work on their hobbies.
Pursuing a passion outside of work generates a creative outlet. Successful people make time for passions and hobbies that stimulate creativity, refresh the mind, and enrich life.
6. They exercise.
From running to martial arts to meditation, exercising on the weekends recharges the body and mind. Successful people understand the power of physical activity and the importance of mind-body connection. They ensure that they have time to work out.
7. They spend time in nature.
Spending time in nature offers another way to unplug. This includes hiking, escaping to a beach, and walking in a nearby trail. Spending time in nature isnt' the most extravagant activity; however, it recharges, refreshes and relaxes the mind, by disconnecting people with their busy day-to-day's.
8. They reflect.
Successful people reflect on the weekends, so they can appreciate and review the past week. They look over accomplishments, lessons learned, what they are grateful for, and what they can let go of. This allows them to put things into perspective, prioritize better, and alleviate mental tension.
9. They have fun.
Successful people work hard and play hard. After a long week of making difficult decision and deep focus, they relax, laugh and enjoy purely entertaining activities. This includes socializing, watching movies and live events, and playing sports. Whatever makes them happy they will enjoy it to the fullest on the weekends. So when the tough work week comes around, they are ready to tackle new challenges.
10. They plan the next week.
Planning ahead leaves room to find and fix errors, mitigate conflicts, and ease stress. Successful people always plan ahead for the next week. Some of them plan a few weeks or months ahead. When Monday morning knocks on the door, they are ready to hit the ground running.
Parting thhoughts
The difference between successful people and everyone else is how they spend their time. Even on the weekends, successful people choose activities that keep them on track to reach their life-long goals. They partake in activities that contribute to personal growth, enhance career development, and help build communities. Successful people never lose sight of their ultimate vision. Even during the weekends, they intentionally work towards that vision, and that is why they are successful.
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