Browse: Home / Newsroom / Blog

Confidence Is Overrated

By Phil Holcomb on March 7, 2015

A long time friend and Twenty First Century Leadership graduate called the other day.

I think he is exceptionally talented in a wealth of ways. Currently, he is working on something big; something which, if he doesn’t get in his own way, will result in the kind of acclaim of which I believe he is worthy.

In our conversation he asked me about confidence – whether I considered myself naturally confident or whether I “grew” into what he judges as my current state of confidence?

I told him, and I tell all participants in Extraordinary Learning courses and my coaching clients, confidence is overrated.

I like feeling confident about an outcome, result or myself more than feeling uncertain and fearful. However, in the long run, confidence has little to do with creating my desired outcome.

The extent to which I feel confident is based on my level of experience in a particular endeavor and on dealing with my results, including the ones I don’t like. The more experience of working through something, the more confidence.

Most people who are stretching in life are exploring some ideas, feelings, skills and abilities with which they have little experience, or at least little experience moving through them to the other side. Anyone in the midst of writing his or her next chapter in life is, ideally, exploring some of the unknown. This is the stuff of which growth, and the richness of life, is made.

If not with confidence, how does someone overcome his or her uncertainty, hesitation, and fear? As I told my friend, the key is to access courage, of which each of us has an abundance. If you are in doubt about this statement as it relates to you, just look at the events in your life, some big and some, in hindsight, not as big as they seemed at the time, in which you screwed up your courage and pressed through to the other side. There are too many to count.

If you are taking on something big by your standards, and I hope you are, forget about confidence. Get really clear about what result you want and the value of it to you and others, commit to the result like you’ve never committed before, get some support and access your unlimited reservoir of courage.

Now, dive in!

Posted in | Tagged , , | 5 Responses

A Closer Look At My Definition Of Leadership

By Lori Marcoux on January 3, 2015

Leadership may be defined in hundreds of different ways. My definition of leadership, that I promote through Extraordinary Learning is, “Leadership is congruent self-expression that creates value.”

What exactly is “congruent self-expression”?

Many people confuse congruence with authenticity. Phil and I make a point of differentiating “authentic” and “congruent”. My belief is when people hear the word “authentic” they connect this concept with being real or genuine. As human beings how do we deny or mask who we truly are? What some people might judge as false images are, from my point of view, actually real personas and authentic.

The opposite of being “authentic” is being “fake” or, perhaps, superficial. Without someone or something else inhabiting my being how on earth would I do “fake”? Even if I were to put on false lashes and ten-inch heels I think I am not doing fake as much as I am doing over the top, an exaggerated or very real projection of who I am on some level.

While I am authentic, I am not always congruent. To be congruent means that I show up in life consistent with what is truly most important to me.

“Leadership is congruent self-expression that creates value.”

To emphasize my point: Some things that are truly most important to me are that I am known as someone who cares for herself and contributes to others, someone who is respectful and someone who is held in high regard. When I project an image aligned with these desires I think I am being congruent. On days when I judge myself to be dressed shabbily, when I catch myself saying things I judge to be disrespectful, or when I evoke belligerent behavior, I believe I am being authentic and incongruent.

I sometimes walk a fine line. I enjoy play. I sometimes entertain myself yanking another’s chain. When I walk this line I am authentic and sometimes not congruent. I practice staying highly conscious or my intention, of showing up in life in ways that correspond to what I value the most and that make a difference. I also consciously model the behavior I think is leader like and that I want from others.

I am “a piece of work” in progress.

I encourage you to join me – making a consciously held effort to model leadership as congruent self-expression that creates value.

Posted in | Tagged | Leave a response

Mindset Is The Differentiator

By Lori Marcoux on December 7, 2014

I believe “results speak”. The results I produce are my hard evidence for me to gage how effective and productive I really am. Others also pay attention to my results. However, people are not solely promoted, held in high regard, nor recognized and respected as leaders based on results alone.

I think having a leadership mindset, exuding an ownership mindset, is the differentiator, results being equal, for being recognized and respected as a leader. These are the people being promoted in the workplace. They are the ones spoken about as people who you want on your team, who you want leading the charge – in your workplace and community.

Being a recognized and respected leader is not always accomplished with ease given people look through their unique filters at me, and you, and the world around them. Human beings are judging machines.

Many people look through a highly critical frame while others look through a curious frame. Some people decidedly focus on the negative while others focus on the positive.

Being a recognized, respected leader by others usually takes time – time consistently producing positive results, and most importantly, demonstrating a leadership mindset. I think it takes much less time to be labeled a poor or ineffective leader. The key culprit of being labeled a poor or ineffective leader is a victim mindset. Clues a person has a victim mindset include and are not limited to: failure to take ownership for one’s results – including his or her thoughts and feelings, engaging overtly or covertly in fault-finding and blaming others for what he or she judges as negative results.

The traits I most admire in others who I recognize and respect as leaders: congruency, directness and full participation. These are traits I remain focused on developing even further in my life. What are the traits you most admire in those you recognize and respect as leaders?

Some people associate leadership with an overwhelming amount of work. If you do, please rethink this victim-based frame. From my perspective, “Leadership is congruent self-expression that creates value.” It takes less work to fully express oneself congruent with one’s values than it does to be incongruent, producing off-purpose results.

How do you want to be known? Ideally, you want to be known for both your results and as a recognized and respected leader – a person with a strong leadership mindset. This is accomplished through a commitment to lifelong learning, continuing to heighten self-awareness and exemplifying leadership, the best way I know how, through congruent self-expression that creates value.

I encourage you, each and every day, to ask yourself and affirm, “How do I want to be known? Today is the day I am producing meaningful results and differentiating myself through my leadership mindset and my unique contribution. Today, I am demonstrating leadership through congruent self-expression that creates value.”

Posted in | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Find Your Parade

By Phil Holcomb on November 7, 2014

For Lori and me, our friends and clients are equally divided between Canada and the United States. Each year at this time we happily and gratefully celebrate the freedoms we enjoy by acknowledging Canada Day (July 1) and Independence Day (July 4).

We hope your holiday is rich and full. We ask that you honor the freedom you have by spending yourself constructively and in ways that honor your purpose of contributing to the human condition.

Each of us is, at our core, unique. While many people may share similar strengths, talents, drives and “essential energy”, each expresses them in his or her unique way. Over time, it is the full expression of this uniqueness that I believe is a person’s contribution to the world.

An example is Dr. King’s description of himself as “A Drum Major for Justice.” The drum major of a marching band leads the band by setting the direction and tempo. In most parades, the band leads the parade. Based on the results of his life, it is easy to conclude Dr. King’s self-assessment was highly accurate. In many arenas this is the way he expressed himself – from the pulpit to leading the parade for justice in the civil rights movement and the quest for peace during the Vietnam era.

I am really attracted to the idea and visual image of each person approaching life as the leader of the parade for what is most important to him or her. John Naisbitt, the highly respected author of the 1982 mega bestseller, Megatrends, said, “Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.”

Graduates of 21st Century Leadership have all the information anyone might require to find her or his parade. They have “done the work” to assess with a high degree of accuracy who they are at their cores and what matters most to them. They are connected with their desire to contribute. And, unlike most people, they have an elevated sense of ownership; they are more skilled than most at avoiding the victim trap.

During this first week of July, when you and yours are celebrating your freedoms (and maybe even watching a parade), Lori and I ask you to take a moment and think about the extent to which you are consciously leading your parade. Are you connected with who you are at the core and fully expressing that part of yourself? Is your frame on your life big enough so that most of what you do furthers your greater purpose – moves your parade down the road? Are you so wrapped up in juggling day-to-day life that you are about many things rather than the one thing that matters the most, your parade?

Lori and I know, from our own experience and from the experiences of most 21st Century Leadership graduates, how easy it is to become disconnected from the very ideas, information, ground and motivations that are most important if one is to show up fully in life – to contribute fully and to create a rich and fulfilled experience in the process. If you have the thought, or if your results reflect, that you have dimmed down and are on a treadmill with no end, let us know. Our parade of learning, growing and leading has room for you. The only thing in your way is your thought that something is in your way.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted in | Tagged | 1 Response

Self Conscious Or Other Conscious?

By Phil Holcomb on October 7, 2014

Recently a coaching client told me, not for the first time, that he was experiencing a number of age related hurts and pains, including back pain and arthritis. He said he is often preoccupied with these conditions and feels gloomy.

This issue is a relatively common one. Many people are at effect of physical discomfort, emotional upset or negative self-talk.

For me, being “other conscious” rather than “self conscious” is the surest way to move past this state. As I use the term, “self conscious” means a preoccupation with oneself at the expense of being fully occupied and present with other people or on other ideas.

An example is found in the story of Pablo Casals, as related by Norman Cousins in his 1979 book, Anatomy of an Illness (a remarkable story itself).

Casals was an extraordinary person in a wealth of ways. One of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century, he is considered by many the most accomplished cellist of all time. Cousins spent time with him shortly before his 90th birthday, a time when Casals’ hands were swollen and his fingers were clenched from arthritis so severe he needed help even to get dress. His had labored breathing from emphysema. He appeared to be a very, very frail and drained old man.

Twice a day, however, he would make his way to his piano and, with great difficulty, seat himself and bring his hands to the keyboard. Once Casals began to play, Cousins reported, his state changed; “The fingers slowly unlocked and reached toward the keys like the buds of a plant toward the sunlight. His back straightened. He seemed to breathe more freely.”

By the time he walked away from the piano he walk straighter, taller and without a trace of a shuffle, as if he has been cured from his illness. In short, his physical state of being has totally changed.

Cousins concludes, “A man almost 90, beset by the infirmities of old age, was able to cast off his afflictions, at least temporarily, because he knew he had something of overriding importance to do…” – expressing himself creatively.

When I am preoccupied with physical discomfort, emotional upset or negative self-talk (when I am self conscious), I remind myself that there are many things in my life that are of overriding importance. In 21st Century Leadership we define these and call them Purpose, fully expressing who I am, Big Game, Definition of Success, inclusion of others, building and leading through relationships, and, simply stated, being fully present with someone else or with a task to which one attaches significance and meaning.

As with all things, we each have choice – self conscious or other conscious?

Posted in | Tagged , , , | Leave a response

Leading Works Better Than Pushing

By Phil Holcomb on September 7, 2014

In most workplaces, gone are the days when the “boss” successfully bosses. Today, position, title and/or authority do not equate to leadership.

With fewer and fewer traditional hierarchical organizations and more and more cross-functional teams the norm, relationship based leadership is more critical than ever. Even in smaller companies and small businesses that are more vertical in design, employees are quick to become dissatisfied when authoritarian / command and control leadership is the standard.  Even if they don’t leave for other workplaces with more enlightened leadership, they usually dim down and give less than there best – an unconscious reaction to their resistance and resentment.

In 21st Century Leadership one of the common leadership issues raised by participants is the question of how to create cooperation and a collaborative atmosphere with teammates over whom they have no authority.  Conceptually the answer is simple – clarify intention, take more ownership, become even more Emotionally Intelligent, show up more (let people know you) and communicate, communicate, communicate.

These are mindsets and skills in which people in 21st Century Leadership are immersed. Given their level of commitment and their willingness to practice following the course, their results will be similar to the graduate who work for a large multinational company and who came to the course at the suggestion of his supervisor to specifically learn how to create more cooperation from others upon whom he relies but over whom he had no authority. Last week he wrote:

“Over the last few weeks I noticed that everyone around me is helping me. I wondered, ‘What’s going on?’

I spoke with my supervisor about this and he replied, ‘Because you are leading now’ and before you were ‘pushing to get the work done.’

Now, I work less and get more results. This is quite amazing actually!”

Want more help, cooperation and ease from “them” (those guys who don’t listen to you)? Begin by reminding yourself it is not about them. You have the key. Lead rather than push.

Posted in | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Use All Of Your Strength

By Phil Holcomb on August 7, 2014

Lori and I are heavily invested in the success and well being of graduates of Extraordinary Learning courses. We hold each graduate as one of “our people” and we have formed bonds of friendship with most. In addition, each graduate is a reflection of the ideas we promote and the work we do. In that regard, our graduates are the only advertising we do.

To these ends, Lori and I spend considerable time following up with graduates to offer encouragement and support. Sometimes it is a check-in email with a group that attended a course together, sometimes a message to a specific person, often a phone call or personal meeting. We also have well-developed instincts about who may be struggling a bit (or a lot). When we don’t hear from someone in response to a message, when we hear indications from a third party and when posts on social media like Facebook may be read to believe someone is feeling particularly challenged, we make a specific point of reaching out to help and encourage that person or to assist that person in finding the support and help that is appropriate for his or her situation.

All too often, after some time has passed, one of us receives a response like this: “Hi, I’ve been thinking about writing you but don’t feel good about doing that unless I have something good to share.”

When I receive a communication like this, I am clear I have been less effective than I want to be in promoting the notion that part of what makes a leader effective is the way that he or she addresses inevitable setbacks, downturns, challenges, and “failures”, both professional and personal.

One thing that distinguishes the most effective leaders in the face of these situations is that they refuse to label them as “bad news” – information not to be shared with the very people who care about them and want to help.  They understand that intellect, willpower and time alone are not viable solutions. Rather, even at the risk of feeling small, embarrassed, inadequate and the like, effective leaders turn to others and seek out help and support. These are choices consistent with the “tag line” for 21st Century Leadership: “Leadership Is Primarily An Emotional, Rather Than An Intellectual, Craft.”

My response to those who do not ask for help and are willing to only be know for the “good news” is contained in the following parable:

A little boy was having difficulty lifting a heavy stone.

Just then his father came along.

Noting the boy’s struggle, he asked, “Are you using all your strength?”

“Yes, I am,” the little boy said impatiently.

“No, you are not,” the father answered. “I am right here just waiting, and you haven’t asked me to help you.”

There is much evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, that most people want to help and derive pleasure from doing so. Lori and I are among them. If you are having a hard time, use all of your strength – ask for help.

Posted in | Tagged , , | 2 Responses

The Art Of Self-Discipline

By Lori Marcoux on July 14, 2014

Fourteen years ago I wrote and began leading a workshop called The Art Of Self-Discipline. People who attended that workshop reported significant results working with my template.

I continue to use this template to stay on track professionally and personally, and to course correct if I think I am not going to reach some of my targets. This is one way I leverage what I teach in Twenty First Century Leadership.

Below are the ideas I focused on in my workshop:

Using a pen and paper I…

  • Design a plan and work the plan.
  • Build some “distraction time” into my plan.
  • Stay current with where I am and where I am headed.
  • Keep an eye on my time-line and adjust my action steps in order to accomplish my tasks by the date(s) I chose as my deadline.
  • Finish what I started while making my transition into my next phase, checking items off my action steps list as I proceed.

I motivate myself through…

  • Beginning with the end in mind.
  • Being proactive.
  • Being courageous and rewarding myself for what I accomplish.
  • Keeping a journal.
  • Asking, when I experience temptation, “Is this going to help me get where I want to be – to further my purpose?”
  • Setting up and using a buddy system or team system.
  • Being as organized as I know how to be and prioritizing.
  • Bringing enthusiasm to every task at hand.

In short, I believe that people who are “on their game” exercise self-discipline when thinking on paper, relentlessly finding ways to overcome what they believe are their limits, knowing when to say, “Yes,” and when to say, “No,” and keeping up with their industry. People in the process of winning remain aware of the value they are creating practicing this kind of self-discipline instead of viewing this process as a burden or sacrifice.

If I “fall off of my game”, become less self-disciplined or experience irritability, I view this as an indicator rather than a condition. I remind myself of the ideas expressed in this article. Similarly, if I allow my enthusiasm to wane, I course correct by paying more attention to constructively creating the experiences that contribute to my feeling of success/fulfillment.

“Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” Life’s Little Instruction Book – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Posted in | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Is Necessity The Mother Of Your Intention?

By Phil Holcomb on June 21, 2014

Remember when you were in school and were assigned to write a paper? Remember how you put it off…and put it off…and…?

Maybe you were unclear about what you wanted to say, probably you were in resistance and certainly you made other and probably less valuable things more important. And then, in the 11th hour, you marshaled your resources, got sufficiently clear about what you wanted to say and did the work. Time was up – do or die.

Another way of thinking about this is that the closer you got to the deadline the more important the paper became to you and the stronger you fixed your intention to write it. What seemed necessary in the moment supported you becoming intentional enough to do it.

If you are like most people, you continue to repeat this pattern today. It is more common than not for people to put the tasks, communications and actions that they resist, or about which they feel particularly challenged, on the back burner (these are, incidentally, often the ones with the highest payoffs). Then, as an established deadline approaches, or people reach their emotional limits of incompletion, fear and uncertainty, they fix their intention (make it important enough) to get it handled and “just do it”.

I often hear people justify this approach. They say they work better under pressure or are more creative in the face of a deadline. Perhaps this is true, but probably not. I think they just experience relief that they got it done and confuse relief with excellence.

I believe that when I fix my intention to handle what is most important first – to spend my time to my highest and best use – I work just as well as when I am under pressure and I am equally creative. And, the benefits are immense. To name a few, I lead rather than react, I spend more time on what matters most (I further my purpose), I have more time to check and adjust my initial results so I ensure excellence, and I avoid excessive stress.

When necessity is the mother of my intention, it is because I allow it. Rather than waiting until I think, “I have to do it now or else…”, I believe I am much more effective when I fix my intention early (make a conscious intellectual and emotional choice to do it now) and handle first things first.

Posted in | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Memorial Day – Grant Us Brotherhood

By Phil Holcomb on May 21, 2014

Monday is Memorial Day in the United States, a day that commemorates the men and women who died while serving in the American military.

I grew up in a military family. My father was a career military officer and a veteran of World War II. It is estimated that some 60 to 72 million people died in this war, of which some 25 million were in the military. I, myself, was an Army officer and I am Vietnam veteran.

I attach great significance to Memorial Day. I am mindful of those who have served and died and are still serving and giving their lives in service. And, I am thinking of their families and friends.

In a few weeks Lori and I are traveling to Pennsylvania to visit my father, now 92. We are driving to Washington, D.C., to visit the graves of his first wife, my mother, and his second wife, my stepmother, at Arlington National Cemetery. We are also going to visit the National WW II Memorial, opened in 2004, which he has never seen.

Knowing my father as I do, and knowing so many military veterans with whom I grew up and served, I believe they share, as I do, the sentiment expressed in President Roosevelt’s address in June 1942.

Citing part of a prayer, he said:

“Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children’s children may be proud of the name of man.

“The spirit of man has awakened and the soul of man has gone forth. Grant us the wisdom and the vision to comprehend the greatness of man’s spirit, that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal beyond his own brief span. Grant us honor for our dead who died in the faith, honor for our living who work and strive for the faith, redemption and security for all captive lands and peoples. Grant us patience with the deluded and pity for the betrayed. And grant us the skill and the valor that shall cleanse the world of oppression and the old base doctrine that the strong must eat the weak because they are strong.

“Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years-a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds. We are all of us children of earth-grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure. Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace-that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march, toward the clean world our hands can make. Amen.”

It is my hope that you, too, share this sentiment and that you lead in this direction.

Posted in | Tagged | Leave a response

« Previous PageNext Page »