Dialing Up Courage

Dialing Up Courage

In 2020, it’s no wonder “doom scrolling” has kicked up a few notches. The pandemic, layoffs, riots and forest fires this past year have caused many people (including myself) to occasionally slip into fear. Controlling our fearful mindset is possible according to several social scientists. Fear can help us to survive of course, but the challenge is discerning which fears are serving us and which ones are holding us back. How do we recognize helpful survival mode fear and useless ego based fear?  How can we build more courage moving into 2021 in order to accomplish brave new goals?

Courage is action in the presence of fear and doubt, not their absence.  Here are a few ways to build up our courage muscles to help push through and take action. According to Maggie Warrell, Author and Phd in psychology, here are steps that can help build courage:

  1. Gain Clarity:  Write down exactly what you want and envision it. Make it a specific goal you would like to achieve in the next 6-12 months. The more detail describing the goal, the better. 
  2. Daily Bravery Practice & Small Steps: Daily mental and physical habits are important in ordinary times but in tough times when so much can throw us off, it’s even more critical. Start by writing down what might happen if you DO take action toward that giant goal. Break down your vision into smaller more manageable steps in order to tackle it.  Afterall, difficult tasks take time. 
  3. Envision a Future Self: Take a moment to envision your future self about how you need to be brave right now. Imagine it’s two years from now. Picture yourself in your favorite place looking back on this moment right now. What advice would your older, wiser, future self give to you in your current situation? 
  4. Identify and Own Fear: Ask what will happen if I face the fear.  Maggie wrote, “notice the uncomfortable emotions you’ve been feeling and give each a label. Anxiety. Hopelessness. Overwhelm. Sadness. Resentment. Apprehension. Stress. Fear. . . As a UCLA study found, the very act of naming your emotions helps to tame them. So label what you’re feeling and notice where it’s sitting in your body.” 
  5. Surround Yourself with Giants: If you want to live a bigger life, you need to surround yourself with people who ‘think big’ and will encourage you to do the same. Accordingly, you’ll want to avoid any people in your life who may discourage your actions and step on your dreams. While they are really just afraid that you will leave them behind, as you start out, you should steer clear of people who will fuel anxiety and feed self-doubt. Never let anyone diminish you or your dreams.

When we choose to see the possibilities instead of dwelling on fear, embracing change is so much easier. Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D., is a psychologist, and author of The Stress- Proof Brain wrote, “Research (Kobasa 1979) suggests that resilient people have three important characteristics—commitment, challenge, and control. Commitment involves having a passion for what you do that allows you to stick with it when things get rough. Challenge involves viewing your stressor as a challenge, rather than a threat (which helps your amygdala calm down and generates positive emotions, such as hope and excitement). Control involves investing your time and energy in changing the things you can control, rather than trying to change the unchangeable.”

Achieving anything worthwhile takes small brave steps and we all know being uncomfortable isn’t fun. But as we start taking action, we discover that we’re capable of more than we thought. It all begins with a single act of courage.

“Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” 

- Maya Angelo

 

We started illume hire in April 2020 with positive thoughts and big plans for action. We’re planning to keep that going in 2021 as we encounter interesting opportunities to use our bravery muscles.  

Happy Holidays!  We’ll be out next week but we’ll be back on December 31st.  

- Nick & Emily

Reviewed & Recommended:

Forbes: How to Find Your Courage in Challenging Times

Damon Davis TED talk: Courage is contagious

Collection of podcasts by Maggie Warrell

Netflix Series: Brené Brown: the Call to Courage | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

 

Recap: Happy Hour with Sheila Callaham

Recap: Happy Hour with Sheila Callaham

Happy Hour Series with Sheila Callaham

Recap: 3 Communication Tips During a Crisis

Last Thursday, we had the privilege of having Sheila Callaham as our guest on illume hire’s Happy Hour series. Sheila is the Executive Director and Board Chair of Age Equity Alliance.  AEA is an organization partnering with companies, communities, and government agencies to build age equity in the workplace. Sheila is also a contributor to Forbes, writing exclusively for the Diversity and Inclusion channel. She also served on The Conference Board’s Council of U.S. Diversity & Inclusion Executives, and the board of the North Carolina Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I’ve paraphrased the event below.

The theme discussed was 3 Communicating Tips During A Crisis:

  • What it Takes to Communicate Effectively
  • How to Approach Difficult Conversations

Questions:

Why should a focus on communications be important when there are so many other things we need to be thinking about? And what about this topic is especially important for midlife career professionals?

  • If you have good and consistent communication practices, it’s going to help when issues arise - no matter what age you happen to be.
  • When you’re under stress, your body tends to react in a “fight or flight” response so when you name it and recognize it, that can help in communication efforts.
  • Knowing ahead of time how your body responds to highly stressful situations will help to mitigate an inappropriate vocal response.
  • Know your end goal with the other person and practice it.
  • Trying to recover from a bad communication experience is much harder than planning for it ahead of time.
  • What can we do when we’re in that situation?  Take a deep breath and ask permission to come back to the conversation later.  If you’re so stressed and can feel your heart pumping and body responding, then you know it’s time to step away from the conversation.

What are the three most important factors in successful communications?

  • Timing of the conversation is huge so consider where that person’s mental space might be at that moment. Is it better to approach a discussion later in the day or early in the morning?
  • Ask powerful questions because when you do so, it gives the other person a voice. And this makes the other person feel respected and it can build trust.
  • Focus on the goal of connection and ask powerful meaningful questions
  • Understand where their resistance is coming from in order to learn more about the other person’s viewpoint.
  • Sometimes people resist because they don’t understand the purpose or where you’re coming from in a situation.
  • If there’s informational disconnect, take a harder look at that to help resolve it and gain more understanding.
  • Ask questions like “What part of this do you know feel comfortable with?” and “What would make you feel better about this?”
  • Another reason why people resist is “emotional resistance” and this can happen in change management.  When change happens, it can be stressful and the whole idea is to articulate why it’s going to be better on the other side.
  • Realize there’s something called “judgemental resistance” which is caused by a lack of trust and ask yourself why this may be the case. If you think about the political environment now, people will not listen to the other side. When things like that happen, it’s great to ask more questions like “What would it take to get you on board?”  That is a good time to bring in stakeholders to help communicate.
  • Sheila talked about tone of voice and how people adopt their communication style based on where they work. Her example was working for the military and when she moved into the private sector, she was told she didn’t need to communicate in a way that was similar to what she had been doing at her military job.

How can we get better at approaching “difficult conversations”?

Sheila worked for 15 years in pharma at GSK. She went through a training course on “constructive contention”.  When it’s uncomfortable, people want to avoid it. Many people have not experienced a constructive contentious conversation when there’s an agreeable outcome. The key is to NOT run away. Stick with it and ask questions and be calm.

In business, there is often someone responsible for “crisis communications.” How can we leverage what they do for personal crisis conversations as a professional?

  • In corporations, it’s all about reputation management.
  • For crisis communication to be successful, you need to to focus on four things: 1) Quick response 2) Being authentic in your response 3) Take responsibility 4) Be part of the solution
  • Don’t let things fester. Talk about it.
  • Sheila cited corporate communication examples.  British Petroleum oil was one example of a slow response and not being accountable as a bad example of crisis communication.  The CEO was defensive about the explosion. They did not have an emergency plan and they even admitted they didn’t have a plan. People were angry about their response and 12 people had died. They did not respond quickly at all. They had completely missed out on communicating properly.
  • Sheila cited Tylenol as an example of positive crisis communication.  Someone had tampered with Tylenol and inserted cyanide and as a result, seven people had died. They recalled $100M worth of product, they got the FBI involved to find the culprit and acted quickly and authentically. They lost loads of market share but they were honest with the public and took responsibility.   

Communication is more than just the words we use. What other things do we need to be thinking about how to ensure successful communications?

  • Tone of voice is important
  • Body language is important so if you need to have a hard conversation then it’s important to ask for a video call so that you can see how they respond.

We discussed how we should communicate during challenging times. What are some things we should NOT do that we need to think about?

  • Don’t respond when emotional
  • Ask for time to reflect and to come back to the situation to discuss logically
  • Create space to think about the conversation and where you want it to go
  • Remain calm
  • Be positive
  • Your goal is to help so articulate your goal and desire for a positive outcome

 It’s hard to judge how a conversation went. How can we really know if it was successful or not?

  • Repeat what was said to gain clarity
  • Be committed to the outcome.
  • Trust in yourself that when you communicate, it’s successful
  • Ask them, “How do you think our meeting went?”
  • If it’s a contentious meeting in a team setting, go back to them and say, “What could I have done differently?”  There is trust that is built when managers admit their mistakes and go back and ask for feedback on how they could improve the situation.
  • In a conversation, you always want to be a good listener.  Listen fully and try to make the conversation 50/50.

 

Other tips:

When/if people talk over you, how should you handle it?

  • Say, “I have something I’d like to contribute” or “Will there be a point I can talk?”  
  • After the person has finished interrupting, you could say, “As I was saying... “

How can we communicate better in a Slack world?

  • If someone is combative, maybe don’t respond at all
  • Remember that you don’t have to have the last word
  • Be curious about others and where they are coming from
  • Make a phone call to reach out to them instead of Slack or Zoom to gain more clarity
  • Know that if you feel resistant to someone else’s idea, there’s a learning opportunity there and an opportunity to grow.

 

Where to Find Sheila Callaham’s work:

 Age Equity Alliance

LinkedIn 

Sheila's Twitter

Forbes – Diversity Equity & Inclusion + Aging Workforce articles by Sheila Callaham

Sheila’s Communication Tips: 9 Communications Tips by Sheila 

 

Recap: Happy Hour with John Tarnoff

Recap: Happy Hour with John Tarnoff

Happy Hour Series with John Tarnoff 

Recap: Career Reinvention at age 50 & Getting Unstuck

Last Thursday, we had the privilege of having John Tarnoff, best selling Author of Boomer Reinvention: How to Create your Dream Career Over 50 and he’s also been named a Top Influencer in Aging by PBS/NextAvenue.  His book and his blog are excellent and can be found here;  Build Your Second-Act Career | John Tarnoff | Career Transition Coach for Over 50.  I’ve paraphrased the event below.

Questions:

Can you talk about 2 or 3 keys for a successful reinvention?  Several are outlined in your book but could you elaborate on a few of them?

  • Reconcile the Past:  Everyone has baggage. Especially at this age. You might feel tossed out because of COVID-19 or maybe wondering what you are doing at the same job. John believes your next step is already inside of you.  He also believes that in order to create the future, one must reconcile the past. Maybe you’ve been fired or maybe you’ve gone through a divorce.  It’s important to come to terms with it and be willing to accept what happened.  For a long time, he left a job off of his resume that had lasted only 6 months. He recommends envisioning exercises from his book.  If people ask about a gap in your resume, need to be prepared to explain it - don’t hide from it. You may even want to bring it up during an interview.  Say, “you haven’t addressed the gap in my resume. I wanted to address the rationale on why I did not stay long”.

  • Be Curious: John believes it’s important to have a beginner’s mind and don’t think you know everything about a certain industry.

Talk to me about the “information is power” during reinvention. 

  • Get third party input. Talk to old colleagues and to old bosses. Talk to family and friends and ask them candid questions.

  • John said that information is power. This means get feedback from others to inform yourself and help figure out next steps and what will align with your skills.

  • It’s also an opportunity to see how you’ve changed professionally.

Walk us through a few of the tools you recommend in order to help age 50+ professionals get “unstuck”. 

  • Get to a point where can ideate and prototype new positions and ideas of where you could take your skills

When you’re coaching someone, how do you inspire them to get out of their comfort zone?

  • Many people get into a rut but the rut is not the reality.  Instead of confronting it, oftentimes people will create these workarounds.  Some people will twist themselves into a knot in order to avoid confronting limiting beliefs. Those limiting beliefs CAN be obliterated, however.
  • Practice reframing your situation

You’ve recommended that professionals who are 50+ reveal their age by having graduation dates left on LI.  Why do you recommend doing this?

  • There is a fear factor here that is really toxic.  Employers are going to figure out that you’re older.  And if they don’t and you get in by tricking yourself, what happens next?

  • John got into a conversation over LinkedIn with a woman because she was quite sensitive about this topic. She said, “Don’t go there” because she changed her look significantly over the last ten years.

  • John pointed out that we live in a youth-obsessed culture but do we really want to buy into it?  It’s pushed people age 50+ and especially women into a corner.  Let’s start by focusing on what we can bring to the table - beyond our smooth skin.  It’s time to make it into a socio-political statement.

Other tips from John:
  • Follow your usefulness and provide real value in other people's life or business instead of “follow your bliss”.

  • Your skills are great but don’t compete with someone younger but it’s time to own your experience in the workforce.

  • Explained that there was a man who sold his business and then was recruited by a tech giant doing research. He was the oldest on the team and never felt comfortable on the team because he was at least 15 years older than the others. He decided to take an advanced course in excel because he saw there was a need for someone to know more about the budget and finances.  Doing this allowed him to be more integrated into the team.

  • One person asked about career reinvention later in life. John said there are 5 main steps.  Reframing, listening and accepting and reconciling the past in order to figure out a career reinvention.  Journaling is one way to help gain clarity on what to do next in your later career.  He recommended the book, “The Artists Way” to also help figure out your next step.  Use pictures and keep track of articles for inspiration and revisit those and then you’ll see patterns in what speaks to you.  There are many different ways to focus on your interests.

 

John Tarnoff is a career transition coach, speaker and author who helps mid and late-career professionals find more meaningful and sustainable careers in today’s volatile economy. He specializes in working with senior-level transitions into second-act careers beyond traditional retirement. 

John has had the unfortunate experience of being fired 39% during his 35 years as a film producer, studio executive, and tech entrepreneur.  As a result, he learned the keys to turning setbacks into successes. He reinvented his own career at 50, earning a master’s degree in spiritual psychology to focus on education and training.  

John has coached individuals and groups, and led career workshops for university alumni, including with UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. Corporate coaching clients have included Bank of America, Bridgewater Assoc., Carnegie-Mellon University, Levi-Strauss, Softbank, TD Ameritrade, and Thrive Global.

 

Here’s a link to the full interview from last week:

John Tarnoff Interview by illume hire

 

John’s TEDx talk on YouTube:

John Tarnoff "The Kids Are Still Alright" Tedx SoCal

 

Get Started: John’s ebook:

go.johntarnoff.com/3steps

Creating a Career Map

Creating a Career Map

Having a career map helps to gain clarity to what’s next in mid or late career - and it can be a game changer.  A career map helps to create a plan of where you think your career will go and thinking about your skills, your likes and dislikes and what others say you’re adept at doing.  It’s about looking at the near and far future and writing down steps to take to get there.  Figuring out the desired destination is the first step.  Whether your dream is being the next Director, VP or CEO of a huge company or creating your own startup, writing out a career map will help discern the next steps needed to move forward.  

A friend of mine was passionate about product design and human behavior research but was in a dead-end sales job.  Her friend owned a recruitment firm and said it would take a year to make such an extreme career change - maybe even longer.  Her jaw dropped. However, when she started working on her career map and taking courses and networking, she began to see that it’s attainable.  By envisioning something different, she began feeling more empowered and eventually landed a new position in product design research at age 55 after a year and a half of working on her skillset and aligning with organizations that were in the design field.

Here are steps to create a career map:

Collect Self Data

Take some time to reflect and write down your best skills, traits, passions, and talents. Understand what excites you and makes you feel engaged. 

Asking these questions may help to get started:

  • What’s most frustrating?  
  • What gives me the most satisfaction at work currently?  
  • When was the last time I was thrilled about what I accomplished?

Ask for directions:

People enjoy talking about themselves, their knowledge, and often love being a mentor.  Talk to as many people as possible who are doing things that interest you. You’ll find that others who are in the industry you want to be in are equally passionate about it and may offer to make an introduction.   

  • Search industry specific organizations that may need help or may introduce you to others in the field.
  • Reach out to a related non-profit organization.  It’s a great way to expand one’s network and attain an apprenticeship. 

Continued Growth:

Maybe it’s time to get a professional certification, or even learn another language that will be useful for you in the future.  One way to lose enthusiasm at work is to stop learning. When we are learning, we often find ourselves reengaged. It’s not easy to do if you’re ready to jump but try identifying one part to improve significantly. Trying out different and creative ways to do what you have been doing for years might help.

These should all go on the map. Lifestyle considerations should also be on the map. For example, if you want to live in Southern France in 10 years, place that on the map and if it’s an image, even better.

Celebrate:

Rediscovering the joy of achievement and the belief that what we do matters is the goal.  Don’t forget to celebrate big and small achievements.  Even if it’s a phone call with someone new who is in the field you’d like to be in some day, that’s considered a win.  Write it down in your “celebration column” and at the end of the year, you’ll notice hundreds of “small wins” that add up over time.

Things Look Different Now:

In mid and late career especially, oftentimes people want more meaningful careers - something that will leave them a legacy to be proud of and something they can’t stop talking about when asked.  It’s ALL about feeling useful.  Believe it or not, anyone can save the world and move the needle in every interaction they have - if one has made up their mind to do so. Rediscover the deeper purpose of your work. Each day ask, “How can I make someone's day a little bit better?”

Reviewed & Recommended:

How To Make A Career Map That Actually Works

 

 

Imagine Your Future(s) to Guide Your Present

Imagine Your Future(s) to Guide Your Present

Dealing with uncertainty is the new normal, whether you’re looking through the lens of a parent, a CEO, or an individual contributor. With so many questions floating around in our heads, a natural reaction is to avoid thinking about the future and focus on what’s right in front of us today and tomorrow. However, it turns out that thinking about the future, in fact thinking about multiple possible futures, can provide the secret to working through all that uncertainty today.

A good friend of mine, Peter Scoblic, recently published an article in Foreign Affairs entitled “A Better Crystal Ball: The Right Way to Think About the Future.” While Peter’s focus is on a business and organizational context, the more I’ve talked over his research that underlies the article, the more I believe his findings apply to us as individuals as well.

The basic premise is this: By imagining multiple plausible futures - think 10-15 years out - and then working backwards to identify the events that would have occurred on the way to each future scenario, we can identify common threads and identify patterns that drive our decision making today. While Peter and his co-author, Philip Tetlock incorporate forecasting in their approach, let’s focus on the idea of imagination and scenarios.

If we map out five future scenarios based on our personal and professional lives, what would they look like? Don’t limit yourself to what you think is likely. In fact, it’s important that you stretch the boundaries and pick five different scenarios. For example, one might have you create a foundation for charitable work. Another might have you start a company. Another might have you lose your job and have to sell your house. While this last one isn’t a positive outcome, going through the exercise of laying out these scenarios gives us a powerful tool for making decisions today, tomorrow, and next month.

Once you have your different scenarios laid out, look at the common threads. What commonalities do you see? What would be the signposts that would tell you if you’re headed down the path to one or more of these possible futures? Peter and Philip push business and organizational leaders to develop question clusters: “Questions should be chosen not only for their individual diagnostic value but also for their diversity as a set, so that each cluster provides the greatest amount of information about which imagined future is emerging—or which elements of which envisioned futures are emerging.” We can apply the same technique for ourselves. As we start to find answers to these questions, we can adapt and develop new questions.

This exercise is key to help us escape what Scoblic and Tetlock refer to as “the tyranny of the present.” This requires imagination and a willingness to put our biases aside while we think about possible futures to in turn guide the decisions we make in the present.

Unpacking Bias

Unpacking Bias

Three years ago, I went to a party announcing the product launch of a new company. It was located at a law firm to celebrate their client’s success. Always drawn to entrepreneurs, I was excited to learn more about the team and how they got started.  There was a woman there in her late sixties and I am ashamed to admit that I avoided talking to her. Why?  I wasn’t sure we’d have much in common and I wanted to make the most out of the few hours I had while there.  Was I biased?  Steeped in stereotypes?  Yes and yes. So how can we say “no” to our own biases? How do we catch ourselves from making that mistake in the future?

In the Harvard Business Review article entitled, “Outsmart Your Own Biases” they wrote the following about one’s own initial judgements. “It can be dangerous to rely too heavily on what experts call System 1 thinking—automatic judgments that stem from associations stored in memory—instead of logically working through the information that’s available. No doubt, System 1 is critical to survival. It’s what makes you swerve to avoid a car accident. But as the psychologist Daniel Kahneman has shown, it’s also a common source of bias that can result in poor decision making, because our intuitions frequently lead us astray. Other sources of bias involve flawed System 2 thinking—essentially, deliberate reasoning gone awry. Cognitive limitations or laziness, for example, might cause people to focus intently on the wrong things or fail to seek out relevant information.” So how can each of us check our own bias at the door?  

Here are five areas to start reducing individual bias by Mary-Frances Winters of “The Inclusion Solution”

  1. Desire: One must want to uncover their unconscious bias. I fear that there is a significant minority who really don’t want to do the work or put in the time and effort that it will take.
  2. Acceptance: Once we become aware of our biases perhaps from taking several Implicit Association Tests, we need to accept the feedback rather than becoming defensive or denying the validity of the feedback.
  3. Commitment: To become more aware of all of the hidden biases that we may be carrying will take time and energy to understand how you came to hold that bias. It will not be enough to attend a 4-hour training on unconscious bias. The real work starts after the training. The training can only increase awareness, it will not reverse the biases.
  4. Introspection: Digging deep into your past, becoming more self-aware of those events or teachings which may have produced the bias is a critical step in the process. This can be a very difficult process because some of what you might bring to memory may be painful. Perhaps someone who you  love dearly routinely used racist epithets in your home while you were growing up and while you did not think you carried any of these beliefs, you are uncovering some of the same biases that were not conscious.
  5. Exposure: Often our biases are based on stereotypes from very little understanding of the group that we are biased against. Learning more about the group, being exposed to data and experiences which counter those beliefs is a necessary part of the process.

Following those five steps by Mary Frances Winters will help mitigate one's own biases by recognizing it and taking action. 

And as for the woman I never made the effort to meet at that party?  It turns out she started and sold five successful businesses.  I made an inaccurate judgement based on a person’s age and missed out on connecting with an amazing entrepreneur.  Have you ever made a judgement that was biased?  

Reviewed & Recommended: 

TEDx Talk - Verna Myers: How to overcome our biases?  Walk boldly toward them.

She makes a plea to all people: Acknowledge your biases. Then move toward, not away from, the groups that make you uncomfortable. In an impassioned, important talk, she shows us how. 

The Inclusion Solution: Unpacking Our Biases, Unconscious and Conscious – Part 1: What Are Unconscious Biases? Can We Really Change Them? by Mary-Frances Winters