So what?

Our state of mind is like a lens that filters and influences our interpretation of reality. When we’re afraid, everything scares us. When we’re ecstatic, everything seems funny.

Think about the last time you stayed up late to watch a scary movie, and then you hear a tree brush against a window. It’s just a tree, a sound you’ve heard before, but now you’re scared, because what if it’s more than a tree?

It’s all in our imagination, but the energy to create and hold negative imaginings is as real as the energy needed to do the work that creates value. As leaders we must pay attention to the emotions of our team or risk losing lots of time and energy to useless mental wandering.

Worry, anxiety, and fear, no matter how well intentioned, are nearly always harmful to our emotional well being and business performance.

The ROI on worry and fear is beyond negative.

Practically speaking, we can’t change the whole world, and we aren’t being asked what we want the news media to report. So what to do?

We don’t want to pretend it’s not out there (even if we don’t share that point of view). Even more important, we don’t want to seem uncaring or callous to the real concerns that our people have for their jobs and families.

Final Keynote Prep Work

First, let’s get clear on why fear is so persistent so we can understand how to work with it. If we are in a cage with a shark, the fear is real and it helps us focus, move faster, and be more deliberate.

When our fear is about something remote (not here in the room threatening us), like business being down, or competition calling on a longtime client, we can get stuck and think, think, think, asking ourselves lots of useless questions that we have no good answer for… What if they decide to switch? What if other clients do, too? What if we can’t pay our bills? What if we end up homeless…?

The logic goes like this… If I lose the sale, I could lose my job; if I lose my job, I won’t have any money. If I don’t have money, I won’t be able to get food; if I have no food, I’ll die.

What we’re really afraid of is not business being down, but dying because it’s down.

How absurd is that? What is the probability that we’ll die because we lose an account or sales are off? It doesn’t matter. When we’re afraid, our brain is in survival mode and doesn’t reason so well.

The disconnect is that being afraid helps us deal with the shark by putting us into action. But fear hurts us if we freeze up. When we ask questions that we don’t have answers to (like, “What if I end up on the street?”), fear takes over and our brains stop working.

So fear and worry is bad, and it won’t go away on its own, and we can’t make it go away when we’re afraid. So now we’re really stuck. Right?

On the contrary, when we take immediate action, the fear goes away. Relax.

Inspired leaders can get out in front of their people and make minor changes that dramatically improve their state of mind.

There are three areas that lend themselves to minor tweaks that make anxiety a thing of the past. I have been very fortunate to work with leaders who naturally create confidence in their people.

They do this by addressing three aspects of their workplace: environment, activity, and attitude.

ENVIRONMENT
One of the best leaders I know for creating a positive work environment is Erwin McGowan, a State Farm insurance agent in Houston, TX.

Erwin is emphatic that all office space be clean, well lighted, and organized. Even better, he makes sure to keep cold drinks and snacks available at all times (so his clients and their children feel welcome). The effect it has on his employee/team members is tremendous. How can we pretend that we are starving or the end is imminent when we have cold drinks and food in the break room for free?

Next he puts 8 X 10 portraits of each of his team members on the wall in the entryway. When they walk in the door, they know they are important – and so do their customers.

Erwin does not allow employees to have side conversations in front of clients or gossip during work hours. He rewards his team for everything they produce, everything their group produces, and everything the agency produces.

To say that they work well as a team is an understatement.

The environment is full of life, live plants. It’s clean, has good lighting, it’s organized and supportive of the people and their needs as human beings.

ACTIVITY

Speaking at the CHART Conference in San Francisco

When we’re fully engaged in what we’re doing it is impossible to be afraid. As long as we’re moving forward it’s impossible to hold onto fear or worry.

That’s right. When we stay busy, it’s easier to manage our emotions. So the best leaders use anxiety as raw energy and channel it into their work.

Take a page out of the playbook of former high school football coach turned insurance top producer Steve Allen of Flower Mound, Texas.

Steve is one of the big time insurance agents in State Farm’s Texas region. He has lots of people working for him. As a former football coach, he knows that the way people start work dramatically affects their performance.

Steve is the first one at the office every morning and he’s the last one to leave at night. (He may, however, take some time to exercise during the day.) He wants to make sure his people start fast and end strong.

How does he do it? He greets his employees as they come in the door and asks, “How are things?” After listening to what they’re thinking, he says, great, or good, and then he adds, “Well tell me what you’re doing here today.” As they speak, he enthusiastically nods and says, “Yes, yes, good, nice, excellent. Let me know how it goes.”

Steve always gets more excited, speaking faster, and getting louder as the conversation goes on. Within two minutes, his employees have left their worries at home and they are ready to work.

At the end of the day, he reverses the process. He asks, “How did it go? What went well? What are you doing tomorrow?” He ends with, “Great! And now I want you to leave everything at work. It will be here tomorrow. Have a great evening.”

By doing this, he helps his people start faster, and he makes sure they know what to do first. There is no time to dither,
pine, or worry in his office.

Steve influences people in a very subtle way. He uses his position without force. He ensures that home problems stay at home. Work becomes a sanctuary, safe from worry and anxiety. Work issues stay at work, allowing people to be fully present for their families.

Strategy One:
Keep your environment in shape — warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Make it look like talented, committed, and confident people work there. Never cut the coffee budget in hard times. What does it tell your team if you go from great coffee to less-than-great coffee after you layoff a few people? “We can’t even afford coffee.”

Strategy Two:
Start fast and stay busy. By starting fast and staying busy, we won’t have time to worry. Stay busy and you won’t be afraid.

…Stay tuned for more strategies!

A Pause In The Flow of the River of Humanity

But it’s the crowd, the vibe, the energy that makes this experience Olympian. It’s restorative to the body, mind, and soul to be around so many people who know where they’re going and going there happy.

The Olympics is way cooler than I ever imagined–better than I thought it could be.

Whistler Village Concert

The crowd is smart and respectful. Rarely do you find anyone stopped in the river, and never at a busy intersection. At the events, going through security, everywhere. People keep moving. There are no sheep in this crowd. It moves baby, and it feels good.

The people are fit, wearing ski gear and team uniforms from this and past Olympics. They look like retired–former and current athletes–and everyone is in such great shape.

Crowd At The Men's Downhill Event

At the events you’ve got long walks up the mountain, security, and more climbing to get near the event. Perfect for this crowd–far from slowing you down, they pull you along and show you the way. They know where they’re going, move when the line does, and they wear the right gear to hang outside in winter weather for hours. Even better, they are psyched without being rude or offensive. No one boos, they just cheer for their guys–it’s so cool.

And everyone is an expert or a novice. Expert at the sport they follow or a novice watching a sport they wanted to see because they have time to fill…this makes for bigger crowds than the athletes see at any other time (except hockey–but they’re pros anyway).

Imagine being an athlete, training in obscurity…running in the morning alone, practicing at all hours to get access to the track or ice rink, then getting to the top of the sport in your country competing at national championship with only hundreds watching. Suddenly you’re at the Olympics being interviewed by twelve television crews before your event performing in front of thousands…that’s why some athletes perform so far over their “ability” and others lose their composure: E-N-E-R-G-Y!

Great Turn Out For The Luge

I feel so pumped up, so ready to go after my life, so willing to compete.

Can it be that simple? If we hang out with people who are going for it, we go for it and get it. They say birds of a feather flock together, and I believe that’s true. But what if birds that flock together become like each other?

Now I’m on the hunt for the crowds that fill my soul, my heart, my mind, and restore my body with the energy of possibility.

As a young man I liked the Olympics, but I only knew them through television. Today I know the Olympics up close. And I love the Olympics.

What if we thought about the energy we get from our “crowd?” What if we choose where we go and who we associate with by the way we feel after we’re around them? Could we make the hard choices to avoid the whiners and crazy makers in our lives?

What if they’re family…? Is it okay to only see them at the places where they’re at their best? Visit one early because they get cranky late or someone else in public to avoid their political pontifications, maybe avoid others if there’s going to be booze around?

Are the people we’re surrounding ourselves with filling our lives and restoring our souls with the juice of life? If not, who’s responsible for choosing better places and crowds to feed us? Who’s going to put “better” sources of energy in our life?

Now, I’m on the hunt for the good crowd, like the people who are in the power punch class at the YMCA at 8 a.m. on Monday. Every time I join them, I leave totally jazzed.

And I’ve decided I’m going to more Olympics for sure.

Sean Payton, coach of the New Orleans Saints made some gutsy calls in Super Bowl XLIV and since the Saints won, he made the “right” calls.

Were they smart calls? What if New Orleans had lost?

Do you remember Jonny Moseley? The US skier won the Olympic moguls competition in 1998. He finished fourth in the 2002 games in Salt Lake City because he performed a “Dinner Roll,” a radical double flat rotation trick that was considered questionable by the judges since inverted flips were not allowed.

Moseley’s Dinner Roll was not inverted but it was the most radical, new, difficult, even hard-to-imagine-how-to-do it trick on the planet at the time. And he nailed it!

Gutsy? Yes. Smart? Well that depends. The judges scored his run, arguably the best of the event, as a fourth place. No medal. Not a big deal to him as a competitor since he’d won Olympic gold in 1998.

He knew in his heart of hearts that he was the best. Jonny Moseley lifted his sport by being willing to push the envelope in front of the world–even when it meant losing the endorsement cash that comes with winning the Olympics.

Moseley asks, “Was I bummed? Sure.” He shrugs. “I knew the judges weren’t going to get it, but I had to do it anyway. I wasn’t going to look back at the Olympics and know that I played it safe. I needed to be progressive, to take it to the next level, for me. I already had a gold, after all.”

Now, according to Moseley’s blog, Shaun White is facing the same tough call. He is the baddest freestyle snowboarder on the planet–and he’s talking about throwing some tricks in the Olympics that have not been done in competition. Why would that be a problem? With sports that develop very quickly, the judges can’t stay current. It’s nearly impossible to judge a sport that is so technical unless you can do, or at least try to do, the same tricks.

The judges might not be savvy enough to appreciate how hard a trick is, particularly when the performer makes it look easy. So what to do? Play it safe and go with tricks they know and have a more predictable chance to win? Go for the gusto and throw the baddest trick you can find and hope someone remembers later when you need a J-O-B? Ride for the glory of the sport or win the gold safely and then ride for the glory of the sport in the events that “appreciate” you putting the free in freestyle?

At the end of the day we each have to decide. Are we going to play it safe or are we going to go for it? Never make the mistake that guts and smarts are at odds. If you saw the way Shaun White kissed the deck during the X Games practice session, you’d know he’s got guts. If you heard what he said, “I’m glad I got back on the board right away so the crash wouldn’t haunt me at the next event” then you know he’s smart.

And it’s not just about what’s right or wrong. In the end the sustainable decision personally and professionally is to have the guts to do what we deeply believe is the “right” thing whether it’s immediately recognized by others or not.

We learn more by doing what we are personally committed to, what we believe is best, right or wrong. My friend (and sustainable custom home builder), Chris Fry, www.dovetailbuild.com says, “Sometimes you have to move forward just to know if you’re pointing in the right direction. The faster you go the sooner you know.”

The real risk is not that we won’t make the “best” decision but that we will lose the learning that comes from going for it when making decisions and living with the results. If we let popular opinion change our mind, we can always shrug off the responsibility with “I knew I shouldn’t have done that” (so we’re not as invested in the results–a sure prescription for failure). If we do what we want and we’re wrong, no one will learn more than we do. If we’re willing to be wrong often enough, we can learn anything.

We need to remember that no one knows more about our situation, point of view, capabilities, and potential gain than we do. Further, no one knows how we much we care about our choices or why.

In my current sport of motocross, we see lots of young and talented riders who fly off the jumps. It would be easy to think that they just do it (like the commercials tell us to). When we have significant risk to our health, we don’t just do it. We work up step by step.

First we get comfortable with the small jumps. When we feel confident we go for bigger and bigger air until one day someone says, “Wow you’re really talented.” We get there, one step, then another, developing the technique, muscle memory, and body positioning to land the big jumps.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell explains how top performers develop extraordinary skill and acuity in their craft–bordering on genius. The surprise is that they are not the most talented or the most intelligent. According to Gladwell, the difference between those who are the very best and those who are competent (but not gifted), boils down to better coaching, better training, and the fact they spend ten thousand hours in deliberate practice. It’s this deliberate practice that makes it possible to make a gutsy call and a smart call at the same time.

Deliberate practice, and the understanding and competence that we get from practice, is what gives us the confidence to make a gutsy call the smart call.

New Orleans had practiced onsides kicks hundreds of times; they’d practiced going for it on fourth down. They’d practiced blitzing their linebackers. They weren’t just going for it; they were pushing the envelope of possibility by taking more risk in an area where they were highly proficient. And it paid off. They weren’t throwing up their chips and hoping they’d fall in a good place.

Sean Payton showed his chops by being willing to take a chance, an educated chance, and his team pulled it off. He wasn’t rolling the dice–he was making a steely eyed, what’s-best-for-my-team-even-if-it-puts-me-at-risk leadership choice. That’s what Jim Collins called Level Five Leadership in Good to Great. Great leaders do what’s best for the team and leave their egos out of the decision.

Payton’s call could have gone the other way. The Saints could have lost. He would have taken the heat himself for the call, but shared the credit for the results of those calls with his team.

So is it gutsy to try something risky that you’ve never done before? What if you’ve always wanted to and this might be your only chance? No, that’s stupid. Real guts is about stretching the envelope in areas where stretching is in the natural order of things.

When anyone thinks they are “going big” the first time they ride a full race motocross bike you can call the ambulance–because they’re going down hard.

Operating outside our ability and hoping for good luck is stupid. Pushing the envelope of our experience and skill to improve ourselves and our professions, that’s smart–even if we fail to get what we want–because we learn faster when we move faster.

Shaun White previewed some of his tricks in New Zealand, but he could still lose Olympic gold if he goes for it and wows the crowd so big that the judges can‘t comprehend what he’s done and punish him with mediocre scores. Or he could go for it and blow one of the big tricks and still lose.

Will people question him, his contribution to the sport, if he plays it safe and gives the judges the tricks they expect? Probably not, but he will. None of us get to the top of our profession without a commitment to excellence.

Why not make “going for it, smart” a habit? “Going for it, smart” inspires our hearts with possibility and feeds our minds with real-time information about how things could work out in our favor. It’s part of our learning. More importantly, going for it, when it makes sense, puts the sparkle in living.

Should you go for it, or play it safe? What if you had a way to decide, for those times when you’re not completely convinced either way?

Here’s how to know for sure…

Answer these questions:
1. Are the odds acceptable (long odds are sometime better than no odds)?
2. What is the risk if I fail completely?
3. What if I make the safe call and fail?
4. What will I learn, either way?
5. Is this about me being right, or doing the right thing?
6. How will I feel tomorrow if I succeed? If I fail?
7. What about next year?
8. In fifty years?
9. Now, imagine you are fifty years older–looking back over a long and satisfying life. Remember now what it was like to make this decision. After fifty years, what advice would you give to someone like you who had this same decision to make?

So, should YOU go for it? Don’t ask me. You already know. What’s stopping you?

Some of the fabulous airport volunteers!

My flight arrived in Vancouver, BC Canada YVR at 8:28 p.m. I was trying to get on a bus at 9 p.m. to get to Whistler by midnight.

I figured Customs could be a delay. But this was Vancouver. A delay at Customs? No way! They had twenty stations all manned. I chatted up the customs agent and went to pick up my luggage.

Everywhere you looked where was someone in a green or blue shirt with the words VANCOUVER 2010. Help with the luggage, directions to the bus, whatever you needed, there was a live person there ready to help.

The luggage was slow. Way slow. There was a problem with getting it off the plane. But just as I was going to check to make sure I was at the right carousel, they announced that there was a problem getting the luggage from our plane–just letting us know. The luggage was coming, but not yet.

With a little time to burn I started talking to the volunteers. They were willing to answer any questions. One volunteer even whipped out her BlackBerry and Googled why Canadian are called Canucks. Canuck is the mascot for the Vancouver hockey team. The origin of the word is up for discussion–like a lot of things on Google.

I noticed when the Customs Officers had no one in their lines they would stand and talk amongst themselves. When a new plane landed, they all went to work.

In Vancouver, they’re willing to stand around a little to make sure their guests don’t.

They could have let us wait, or figure it out on our own, but they had happy people everywhere, ready to help.

“Enjoy your Olympic experience!”

That’s what they all said as their parting words: “We hope you enjoy your Olympic experience.”

Talk about customer service. What more can you say? They save me time, make things easy for me to do, and remind me to enjoy my experience.

Vancouver is my new favorite city!