TRUST in the Toolkit for 2012

Yesterday I added Excellence into the toolkit for 2012 based on Cirque Du Soleil's way of being in everything that they do. Today I'd like to put TRUST into the toolkit.

It's obvious in the picture above and this wonderful video, both from Cirque Du Soleil, that the performers are required to put 100% trust in their colleagues - both those on and off stage.

Having just finished my own personal training session I realise that they also have to trust themselves. My personal trainer has just added another 5kg to my weights and I was certainly doubting my ability to do the exercise. The negative chatter started as I told myself:

I can't do this

I'll drop it

I'll hurt myself

I'll fail

My personal trainer trusted I'd be able to do it. It was just lack of trust in myself that was generating the less than positive thoughts. Which, of course, in turn made what I was doing so much more difficult.

But something changed today, and that's because I didn't grumble to my personal trainer, I didn't give voice to my doubts, I simply told myself I could do it and got on with it. And in so doing realised:

I can do this

I can keep hold of it

I can stay safe

I can and will succeed

How is lack of trust in yourself stopping you achieving your goals and what do you need to stop telling yourself to succeed?

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping you trust yourself and stay on track in 2012
#2012toolkit

Can you be faithless and therefore trustworthy?

An article in Supply Management told us to 'Sacrifice yourself rather than your principles' and had me thinking about my favourite topic of authenticity and the implications of being authentic in the workplace.

I'll share other thoughts over the coming weeks but wanted to start with this.....

There's a wonderful quote in The Invitation that asks...

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true;
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul;
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

It's a quote I often share with clients and yet it's the one that some find they are unable, or should I say unwilling, to embrace.

During our day to day activities we work with other people, we rest with other people and we play with other people. It's during all this activity that we make promises - whether explicitly stated or implied e.g.

* I will do this or that for you
* I will support you
* I will be there for you
* I do believe in you etc

Sometimes these promises are very easy to keep. Sometimes we know we shouldn't be making the promise from the start, other times it just becomes harder for us to keep and other times the promise is no longer valid for the person we have become.

The issue is what do we do when the promise is one we know we can longer keep, when we know that it's no longer supporting us? In these instances many stick to the promises they have made even though it's slowly eroding at who they are and may even be making them ill.

In the Invitation the author shares "I suddenly realised that the people in my life you are the most trustworthy, are not those who always keep their agreements with me. Those who can be faithless - who can bear the responsibility or breaking an agreement with someone when the alternative is to betray themselves - are trustworthy."

Can you bare the accusation of betrayal to be true to yourself today?

Your habits are contagious - so are theirs

It's often been said if you want to be wealthy to hang around with the wealthy and certainly stop spending time with those who aren't. Having spent a day with Dr David Hamilton at the weekend I realise that’s also true for all our:

Habits – health, relationships, team working, communication, performance
Emotions – happiness, fear, anger, depression
And yes even yawns!

That is these are all catching – we can get infected by others and of course we do our fair share of infecting too. So if you have goals you want to achieve you’d best check that the habits and emotions of those around you, up to 3 degrees of separation, would be useful to you. Although the closer you are to someone the more likely you are to get infected!

David has just released his new book ‘The contagious power of thinking’. The main premise of the book, supported by lots of research and science, is that we’re hard wired to copy others! The mirror neurons in our brain pick up on what others are doing and want to copy them. So if someone smiles at you your mirror neurons will subtly copy that smile and there’s very little you can do about it. Just as there’re very little you can do when someone passes a frown, anger of fear your way – not instantly anyway.
This can have a significant impact in organisations as one study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology showed where for each one point increase in a retail manager’s job satisfaction there was 5 percent increase in customer spending. Other studies including from Harvard support the findings about the ‘contagious power of thinking’.
Who are you infecting and is it helping?

Stop accepting the unacceptable

I admire the athletes who this week have made the decision to not attend the commonwealth games in India. Not necessarily because I think it's the right decision but because it's the right decision for them and they didn't allow other factors to stop them from making the decision.

Many of these athletes have worked for years to prepare for this event - for many this might be the last time for them to perform in such an event - and yet they still made the decision to not go. It won't have been easy. I'm sure there will have been many trying to convince them otherwise. So hats off, hands clapped and backs patted for their making the decision and sticking to it.

In business I hear too many times that things can't change. Normally, just as with the athletes, it's because a lot of time and effort has been invested in the current outcome. Unfortunately until we start saying NO to the unacceptable and following what's right for us then the unacceptable will continue to claim the high ground (if that's not mixing too many metaphors?).

So next time you accept the unacceptable because it will....

keep the food on the table
make things easier with others
keep your stakeholders happy
make the company money
avoid you having to re do the work

...think again. It's time to start trusting and acting on your convictions not just thinking about it.

Alison

Alison Smith
Ensuring purchasing relationships trust and act on their convictions

I don't want to do it on my own

"I don't want to do it on my own" has been a comment made in many coaching sessions recently. The answer is of course we don't have to. But we often soldier on and think others will either notice and offer help or think they are too busy, wouldn't want to help or provide some other reason for them not helping. Often we just have to ask - they're not mind readers after all.

So what do you need help with today? Who could help? When will you ask them?

And what do I need help with? I'm currently in the final throws of completing my forthcoming ebooklet "Help - I'm up the creek without a paddle - get me out of here". It would help if I could include in the book some statistics on how many people consider themselves up the creek or not. I've put a poll in LinkedIn and would love as many people as possible to respond. Thanks in advance http://polls.linkedin.com/p/58405/bayza.

You can never be too authentic

I am proud to say I will be representing Scotland in the Professional Speakers Association xfactor :-) in London in November as a result of winning the heat last night. Which I'm very excited about.

Some of the feedback included how uncomfortable some businesses audiences might have been about the level of disclosure in a personal story - ie too much emotion.

Over a celebrationary drink after I realised that by not sharing as much of the story as I could the audience hadn't been as able to identify with it. So many had just felt it was me bearing all with no relevance to them. Had I gone into the story more and shared the impact on my work and life rather than just stay at the emotional level I'd have engaged them completely.

So rather than pull back from sharing with people tell your story deeper so others can really understand how it relates to them.