How to talk to yourself and how THAT is a the key of being a powerful leader?

If you see someone talking to himself or herself, you probably will give him or her a wide berth. Crazy, right?

Maybe not. Maybe she or he just wants to be a good leader. More precisely, a POWERFUL leader.

Yes, you need skills and training. An MBA won't hurt and if you have the support of your family and friends, that will be so helpful. However, a real and powerful leader requires more than that. Much more.

How much more? In fact, only the leader can know that, and for it, the leader requires sometime inside his own heart and head to understand the self.

If you are that leader, you can use many methodologies, according to the need and to your own personality:

• Time of solitude. For some people, that is enough. Just sometime alone and he or she is able to figure out many of the questions popping into the mind, or finding those slippery solutions. It is important to tell everyone who needs to know that you will be performing this exercise; if you feel shy to say that you just want sometime alone, just go somewhere else. Ah, don't forget to switch off all gadgets!
• Writing is understanding. Some people like to write. Peter Senge said at some point just allow the pen to flow on the paper. If you are high-tech, the equivalent will be to allow your fingers fly over the keyboard; anyway, writing clears the mind and allows many realizations to emerge. Merging solitude and writing can work most of the time, otherwise just be aware to write at a place that people will respect your time to do it.
• Talking to yourself. If you have the time and space, hearing your own voice can help you to understand your attitude and mental patterns. Perhaps, you can find a good listener who is able to nod to you from time to time, but allow you to do all the talk. No need to say to avoid public spaces using this technique...
• Contemplating. If you can, chose a beautiful natural spot, or just the view from your window. And stare at it. Allow your mind to flow freely, with no guide or schedule, and merge into the landscape you are watching. Background music can be useful, but again, tell others about what you are doing, otherwise they will wonder what is going on with you. Sometimes, during contemplation, you will have excellent ideas. Try to not write them, but use other skills like drawing, as that will help the idea to emerge in a more powerful way.
• Meditating. Meditation is a powerful tool - it is my favorite way to talk to myself. Check a further post on Meditation for leaders.

After this exercise, share. Share with some friend, people who collaborates with you or some colleagues. Enjoy the feedback and feel the power in your leadership.

Changing your life style

During a lifetime, how many times a person changes its life style? Hair (size, color, style), clothes (formal, casual, elegant  and even values (economy, joy, love for family) are changed so many times in our life. Most of the time is under the influence of something external.

Advertisement takes advantage of that, sometimes being so powerful that helps the change to happen. For instance, the number of people who acquired a smart phone or tablet, which changed their life style in many ways, just because of a few ads here and there, and the implicit suggestion that by having those you will be smarter, cooler or anything like that.

Sometimes your life style is changed due to a need. With the present economic crisis, many people of richer countries are learning to live a simple life.

Well, what about changing life style based on a personal decision? That happens a lot among people who decide to take a spiritual path (like me) or in relation to personal health, but it can also apply on cases when the person acknowledges the need of a certain habit to be part of his or her life.

Habits are not created just like that - not in 21 days or one month. Some habits - like brushing your teeth or waking up at a certain times - can take years to be created. However, habits are very fragile as they normally rely on external factors - brushing teeth when mom and dad are around, or waking up later during holidays. To make a habit last longer, you have to change your own life style - carrying toothbrush around all the time or schedule early yoga practice during holidays.

Time management in its more useful way takes the shape of a habit, something the user is not even conscious but it is there, monitoring every act of the user's life. For the habit to be part of a person's life and to show its benefits, the person has to change their life style.

What is the best life style for a person who is concerned about time management? There is no "right" answer for that, but there are a few factors I have been observing along the years:

• Fashion, hair and clothes take a very pragmatic approach. One interesting case was a Brazilian senator who used to have EXACTLY seven EQUAL suits. OK, let's not exaggerate; but it helps if your fashion is an ally for your TM habits, or if you schedule a longer time for dressing at least.
• Clocks everywhere! Hook's nightmare, but the reality is that most "TM people" have more than one clock or watch: bedroom, over the table, kitchen, office desk, wrist, etc. As it's a life style we are talking about, take advantage of that to have the best or the most beautiful pieces.
• Diary, agendas, schedules. A "TM person" moves according to a fix table of activities, right? Not really. In this case, you have to understand the way you are and see how you want to handle this. I myself have: one schedule (GCal), another informal To-Do list (StickNotes), a prioritization scheme using draft paper and, when I lack a gadget, a small notebook to take notes of appointments and incorporate to the rest. Crazy, right? But it works, it helps my very flexible life style.
• Relaxation periods. You will find very important, to keep the balance, to have a fixed period of relaxation, which can take the form of yoga, walk on the park or sitting with your kids every Friday night.

Hope this helps you in your process of keeping your Time Management as part of your life, not at some course book. Take care!

Prioritization, such a long word...

When you go to a TM course, one thing you will learn is how to prioritize and, at least in my case, how to spell that word...!

In reality, prioritization is natural to human beings. If you want to go deep about how we work mentally, I suggest the book Thinking, fast and slow, by Daniel Kahneman, which gives a deep insight on human mind. It helped me to understand the reality: we always have a priority.

Even when we are children, we prioritize between tasks (hug mom or dad first?), objects (teddy bear or a rattle?) and even food (mom's milk or baby food?). That helps us to decide (hug mom, teddy bear and baby food) and becomes part of our personality as a whole.

But, when we are already grown-up, it is time to check how we prioritize. So, it is not that you will learn how to do it - you are going to RElearn how to do it. This time, you are going to use what I call Prioritization Criteria.

For instance, in my case, I have two basic criteria: impact and easiness. Impact helps me to give more energy to those things which are really important and that will generate an effect in my life, or in a project. But it is important for me to go easy - so, I chose things which are not so complicated, or that don't demand time. The sum of both criteria has helped me to write this blog post before posting new pictures in pinterest, for instance.

What are your criteria? Even better: which criteria will help you to do tasks in such an order that you won't feel exhaustion or boredom?

Both questions I think are important. The first one will help you to understand your own way to prioritize. The second will help to understand the BEST way to prioritize.

Your personal work will be to shift from one to another. That requires discipline, deep understanding of any tasks and appreciation for all the time you will be saving through that.

Take care!

Real meaning of all

Following up with time management, I would like to tell you that recently, we at last bought a plasma TV.  It's shockingly slim, really, very flat and elegant  And I feel most of our present life is a bit like that: slim (life, not body!), elegant and... flat. At some point I have heard that the present society is a few inches thick and deep.

And the tendency is that things will go even flatter. Well, no problem with THINGS, but what about us? What about me?

I did try to watch House of Lies. As a business consultant, I should feel insulted by the few clips I've watched, but no, I think that is just a reflection of all that is going on around us.

And let's not talk about news in paper, TV, radio, INTERNET...!

So, what about this line of thought: if what all of us do is to spend more and more time, struggling to keep with the pace of situations, and if all situations are lacking of depth, why not associate these two things? Or: if I go deeper and deeper, perhaps I will spend less time and I will struggle less.

That's the essence of living spiritually in today's world. Although some people chose to isolate themselves, most of spiritual people nowadays live a normal life: they have to work hard, they have families to sustain, they reach success and they enjoy material things. Main difference is found in the attitude, as when a person is not working with his or her own spirituality they will do the same, but they will always want more and more. A spiritual person knows limits very well and at the same time, is not limited by anything except that she or he chooses.

Hummm... last phrase turned to be a little zen. Listen, I have been working out my spiritual muscles for 30 years, and I can feel the differences between people with a spiritual approach and people with a non-spiritual approach, and it is not so much visible. It is something invisible that is there, hidden in their eyes and their outlook. It is not their faith, or lack of faith, but it is merged in their actions, you can just feel!

Still zen? Anyway, when you start to realize the meaning of all (and I mean all: job, family, body, habits, desires, etc.), then you will start naturally to manage your time in a different way. It will be natural as you will know the importance of each thing and how much energy you can dedicate to that.

There are several tools for that and you can use them all at the same time, if you need it:

• Talk to someone wiser than you. Part of the path to manage your time includes of acknowledging others' wisdom. Have a nice dialogue with another person, check with him or her, their opinion about you and the way you spend your time. Listen deeply.
• Read books wisely. Most books in my life have taught something because I went after it, even very shallow stories. There is always something to learn if you are wise enough to learn from it.
• Contemplate. There are few experiences in life more gratifying than contemplative moments. And it is so easy, just stare at something and let your mind do the job, detaching you from the present situation and allowing you to merge in that you are looking at (or visualizing), and understanding its depth and significance.
• Meditate. Probably this is a few notches higher than contemplation as it is a deeper experience. Think of contemplation as watching a swimming pool and touching into it with the mind; meditation is jumping on that swimming pool fully with the mind.

Hope that works for you as it works for me. Take care!