 Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash For entrepreneur, professional speaker and success coach Sheryl Grant, transformational leadership through personal development and community building is the name of the game. A Ms. Olympia at over the age of 50, Grant clearly knows what it takes to realize over-and-above achievement both in life and in business. Today, through her eponymous company Sheryl Grant Enterprises, this powerhouse is helping CEOs, executives and other entrepreneurs master key areas of their careers and lives overall.
Her secret sauce? Grant taps into a trifecta of neuro-training, physical fitness and increased productivity to unlock personal ambition, revenue potential and self-confidence. Grant urges that success-minded individuals must aspire to be F.I.T., heavily leaning on “Faith, Intuition and Tenacity” to reach their goals. A key aspect of Grant’s various F.I.T. presentations and webinars is a focus on developing mental strength through neuro-training, whereby she offers a variety of tactical techniques related thereto. Below, Grant offers insight on some of her mind-bolstering methodologies that, as she explains, can help us cultivate a greater awareness of who we are, develop a road map of where we need and want to go, and conceptualize how we intend to get there: Start a Dialogue with Yourself. Begin by asking yourself some basic questions: Who are you? What are you good at? What do people you care about see in you? When have you felt the most alive? What can you learn from others who have a strong purpose and who are inspirational to you? Ultimately, living with purpose means focusing on what matters most to you. And following the money and following your heart don’t have to be mutually exclusive. There’s not much mystery as to why most people work: to earn money. However, there are a lot of ways to pay the bills. The “why” refers to the underlying, personal reasons you are choosing a particular business and what you are trying to accomplish. Knowing where you are going and, as importantly, why it will inform and strengthen both your personal and career identities and help you reach your goals quicker. Such self-awareness also fosters drive, confidence and self-esteem that can transform you into an unstoppable force—giving you the strength to persist ... even through failure and adversity. You’ll likely be happier, too, and an inspiration to those around you. Identify ALL of Your Inner Strengths. When people are living in their “sweet spot,” they are more productive and naturally add value to the world around them. Accordingly, this “mode” is when people also tend to make more money! What are the things you’ve always been good at? What motivates and inspires you? Perhaps it’s things that come naturally to you, to the point that you wonder why others struggle in the same area? While passion can also certainly blossom from areas in which you aren’t naturally talented, Grant’s personal and professional experiences have shown that we rarely aspire toward ambitions for which we have no natural talent to achieve. As civil rights leader Howard Thurman once wrote, “Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive, then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Indeed they do. Know Where You Add Value. Doing work that you’re good at, but which holds no passion for you, is not a pathway to fulfilment. When we know our greatest strengths and where we as individuals can add the most value, we can better focus on the opportunities, roles and career paths in areas where success will likely occur. These are usually the same avenues where a person finds the greatest sense of accomplishment and contribution. All too often we undervalue our strengths, skills and the expertise that we naturally acquire over time. A great way to discover this for ourselves is to discern what we’re equipped to help solve in the workplace, career, organization or industry. Also, uncovering what problems we enjoy solving, and what problems we feel passionate about attempting to solve. The answers to these questions can help people focus and develop a much clearer series of intentions that are based on natural strengths, and those tasks one innately excels at, rather than trying to bolster or eliminate weaknesses. Through overcoming personal challenges in multiple areas in her life spearheaded by employing the strategies above, Grant says she quickly learned that her biggest difficulty was not the obstacles in front of her, but rather the lack of belief and trust in herself. By her shifting from a focus on fear and limitations to a focus on empowerment fueled by faith, intuition and tenacity (F.I.T.), she reached greater heights than ever before ... and continues to do so.
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 Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Almost everybody bemoans the difficulties in trying to maintain a healthy balance between family and work. But for entrepreneurs, the inability to find that balance is not just unhealthy, it can result in the failure of both the business and the loss of the family. Most entrepreneurs work at least 50 hours a week, and some people like Elon Musk say that working 100 hours a week is doable and will improve the chances for business success. But what about having a life beyond the business?
“Entrepreneurs really do have to walk a tightrope between their families and their businesses,” says Peter J. Strauss (www.peterjstrauss.com), an attorney, entrepreneur and author of the upcoming book The Accidental Life. “Failure in one of those two aspects usually leads to failure in the other.” Making matters worse is that when entrepreneurs first launch the business, many are using their homes as an office. This creates family issues when there are no physical barriers between job and family, Strauss says. He offers tips for entrepreneurs who want to have success in both their business and their home lives.
About Peter J. Strauss Peter J. Strauss (www.peterjstrauss.com) is an attorney, entrepreneur and author of several books, including the soon-to-be-released The Accidental Life. He is the founder and managing member of The Strauss Law Firm, LLC, on Hilton Head Island, S.C, and also the founder and CEO of Hamilton Captive Management, LLC. He is a graduate of the New England School of Law and of Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Management program. Strauss also holds an LL.M. in estate planning from the University of Miami and speaks regularly at public seminars.  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Bad habits can be hard to break, and for business leaders who have them, they can be deal-breakers. In a survey by Leadership IQ, an online training firm, the primary reasons CEOs were fired - mismanaging change, ignoring customers, tolerating low performers, and not enough action - were often related to unproductive habits.
“Although leaders who display these behaviors generally know what to do, and how to do it, their unproductive habits render them unable to get things done - with dire consequences,” says Mark Green, a speaker, coach to CEOs and author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz). “The most common unproductive leadership habits include avoiding decisions and conflict, maintaining comfort-zone networks, needing to be liked, neglecting to listen enough - and they are hard to break.” But Green says they can be broken and suggests replacing them with foundational habits that make leaders successful. He lists six of them here.
“With our thoughts, we make our world,” Green says. “Check your beliefs about your leadership habits, choose just one or two to change, enlist others to support your efforts, then get to it.” About Mark E. Green Mark Green, author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz), is a speaker, strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams worldwide. He has addressed, coached and advised thousands of business leaders, helping them unlock more of their potential and teaching them how to do the same for their teams. He is a Core Advisor to Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches (formerly Gazelles International), a mentor to coaches worldwide, and an active contributor to programs and content for their global ecosystem.  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash In business, the adage “it starts at the top” can prompt an uncomfortable question: “Can the boss finish what he or she started?”
Many CEOs and entrepreneurs wrestle with this challenge, with both short- and long-term implications. Meanwhile, a disconnect develops between the CEO’s initial big-picture vision for the company and its seemingly sporadic execution toward those goals. The Global Leadership Forecast 2018 highlights issues of greatest concern to CEOs; among them is a lack of alignment among senior leaders. The last problem any CEO wants is an inability to get everyone on the same page, aligned and executing their strategy. “I’ve witnessed CEOs struggle with this question: ‘‘Why is it so difficult to execute what I already know I should be doing?’” says Mark E. Green, a speaker, coach to CEOs and author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz). “They and their teams generally know what to do and how to get it done. But they avoid the decisions and actions they know could advance their success. “All roads lead back to obstacles within your mind. New behaviors leading to execution require new ways of thinking.” Green lists five ways for CEOs to change behaviors that obstruct them from leading their company efficiently and effectively:
About Mark E. Green Mark Green, author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz), is a speaker, strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams worldwide. He has addressed, coached and advised thousands of business leaders, helping them unlock more of their potential and teaching them how to do the same for their teams. He is a Core Advisor to Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches (formerly Gazelles International), a mentor to coaches worldwide, and an active contributor to programs and content for their global ecosystem.  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Some popular products seem to sell themselves, but the reality is the success began with a process. The same is true in the business of professional sports, a $60 billion-a-year industry where some franchises grow into monster brands. Sales managers in many industries sometimes use sports themes in their coaching -– competitiveness, dedication, strategy execution, etc. And as someone who has trained the sales teams of major sports brands, Lance Tyson sees what often separates the winners from the losers.
“The problem with selling today is there’s no home-field advantage,” says Tyson (www.tysongroup.com), President and CEO of Tyson Group, a sales training, coaching and consulting company and author of Selling is an Away Game: Close Business and Compete in a Complex World. “The selling game takes place in the buyer’s mind. As the salesperson, you have to determine how much the potential buyer knows or doesn’t know. And even with all the technology, it’s never been more competitive; there are more salespeople interacting directly with customers than ever before.” Tyson offers four concepts to consider when coaching your sales team on today’s more complex playing field:
“There’s plenty of room for a salesperson’s creativity and a customer’s need for tailored solutions,” Tyson says. “At the same time, you can use that process repeatedly to provide solutions and compete in a complex world.” About Lance Tyson Lance Tyson (www.tysongroup.com) is President and CEO of Tyson Group, a sales training, coaching and consulting company listed among SellingPower’s Top 20 sales training companies of 2018. He is the author of Selling is an Away Game: Close Business and Compete in a Complex World. Among Tyson Group’s clients are many professional sports teams such as the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys. Tyson was a franchise owner of Dale Carnegie operations in the Midwest and drove them to 230 percent growth before starting his own company. He conducts over 100 workshops annually in areas such as performance management, leadership, sales, sales management, customer service, negotiations and team building.  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash A key part of any CEO’s or entrepreneur’s role is to make the “right” decisions, and then ensure they are enacted to advance the business. Yet their decisions and actions often miss the mark, frustrating the achievement of their aspirations. It’s the voice in their head and other invisible factors at work.
“All CEOs and entrepreneurs have habits, beliefs and motivators – such as fear – that affect what they do, often unconsciously,” says Mark E. Green, a speaker, coach to CEOs and author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz). Green says these “hidden growth killers” interfere with a business leader’s ability to make optimal decisions and then see them through via day-to-day choices and actions. “This is why leading your business feels challenging, frustrating and even maddening at times despite the fact that you generally know what to do and how to do it,” Green says. “Your motivators, habits and beliefs influence how you think and act.” Any CEO or entrepreneur who ever put off having a critical conversation or justified retaining a poor-performing employee has experienced their own “hidden growth killers” in action. And it’s not just those at the top who are susceptible. “Motivators, habits and beliefs operate similarly in the minds of your leadership team and every other person you employ,” Green says. “The cumulative cost is staggering.” Fortunately, he says, there are research-backed techniques to counteract the “hidden growth killers” and more consistently align our decisions, choices and actions with our ultimate aspirations. Just a few of those are:
Green cautions that no matter how deliberate you are in your efforts to improve, even the most seasoned CEOs make mistakes and experience setbacks. “Remain purposeful and take it in stride,” he says. “In the marathon you’re running to scale your business, your willingness to stretch and grow, to do the work and to stick with it are what really matter.” About Mark E. Green Mark Green, author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz), is a speaker, strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams worldwide. He has addressed, coached and advised thousands of business leaders, helping them unlock more of their potential and teaching them how to do the same for their teams. He is a Core Advisor to Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Major brands such as Facebook, Volkswagen, Starbucks, and most recently Papa John’s have endured controversies that called into question their ethical practices. Those companies are only the latest to be exposed for problems that consumers and those knowledgeable about corporate culture often link with a lack of ethical standards at the highest executive level. This can cause an erosion in the public’s trust, which in turn eats away at a company’s bottom line. Research by Mintel revealed 56 percent of U.S. consumers stop buying from companies they believe are unethical, and it also showed that more than 60 percent of consumers think ethical issues are becoming more important.
There’s an opportunity here, says an international ethics expert, for companies to get ahead of the curve by incorporating better ethics before damage control forces it upon them. “Controversies and scandals in corporations have the power to shift them from moral autopilot to an energized manual control, where they are acutely aware of their actions and their impact,” says Dr. Christopher Gilbert, author of There’s No Right Way To Do the Wrong Thing and senior consultant/speaker at NobleEdge Consulting (www.nobleedgeconsulting.com). “But it doesn’t and shouldn’t require misfortune to switch things up. “As powerful public figures and corporate executives are switched to the truths of equality and justice, the costs of their unethical decision-making become crystal clear to everyone. The dominoes are still falling daily. But never doubt that a rising cry for equity and opportunity can change hearts and grow into a global mind shift.” Gilbert offers five steps for business leaders to help their companies avoid ethical problems and elevate ethical development.
“What you think about ethics becomes your ethics,” Gilbert says. “If you believe ethics are grey, you will find yourself in greyer and greyer situations where the choices get blurrier. Where you see, know and act with the assurance that ethics are there to tell us right from wrong, you will be put into more and more situations where the answer is obvious – despite the complexity of the circumstances.” About Christopher Gilbert, Ph.D. Dr. Christopher Gilbert, the author of There’s No Right Way To Do the Wrong Thing, is an international ethics consultant and senior consultant/speaker at NobleEdge Consulting (www.nobleedgeconsulting.com). Having spent much of his career focused on the study of human moral development, Dr. Gilbert has over 30 years of experience in organizational development as a strategic facilitator and leadership and operations consultant. He has served an international clientele, including Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies in the U.S., Canada, Asia and Africa. Dr. Gilbert completed work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on a sustainable food-security program across four nations of sub-Saharan Africa, and he has been a professor of business ethics who taught at universities on four continents. He earned his doctorate in Organization, Management and Leadership Ethics at Capella University.  Photo by Crew on Unsplash Every day, businesses across the country hum along efficiently, their operations supported by enormous reams of data that most employees – and bosses – take for granted. Need to check inventory? Want to make sure a customer paid a bill? That information and much more is stored somewhere in a computer, always at the ready in time of need.
Except when it’s not. Sometimes things go awry – a hacker, a system crash – that cause a business to lose critical data, and that can be devastating to the bottom line. Worst-case scenario: The business goes out of business. “If you’re a business owner and you’ve not thought of data in relation to your financial well-being, don’t feel bad; you’re not alone,” says Penny Garbus, co-founder of Soaring Eagle Consulting Inc. (www.SoaringEagle.guru) and co-author of Mining New Gold – Managing your Business Data. “Sometimes people are so busy running their businesses that they don’t have time to worry about the bits and bytes of their data and how relevant it is to longevity of their business.” But they should, she says. Without data protection processes and procedures in place, the business could face serious consequences. Garbus says data is like gold: It can be traded, it’s the base for creation of products, and if you lose it, you lose money. Here are just three ways in which a failure to secure data can prove costly to a business:
“Any business that hasn’t already done so should begin a self-analysis to design data protection processes and procedures,” Garbus says. “You need to define your needs and then talk with your IT staff to ensure that the data recovery and protection strategies match those needs. “But remember that this is not an insurmountable problem. If you take the right steps you can save yourself a lot of costs and headaches down the road.” About Penny Garbus Penny Garbus, co-founder of Soaring Eagle Consulting Inc. (www.SoaringEagle.guru), is co-author of Mining New Gold – Managing Your Business Data. She has been working in the data-management field since leaving college when she worked as a data entry clerk for Pitney Bowes Credit. She later ran the training and marketing department of Northern Lights Software.  Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash The recent suicides of iconic fashion designer Kate Spade and internationally renowned chef Anthony Bourdain renewed attention on a disturbing trend in the U.S. Deaths by suicide have been increasing across the country for almost two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s recent report showed that suicide rates have jumped over 30 percent in half the states since 1999. Yet many who take their own lives suffer in silence, and often there aren’t warning signs to those close to them. The CDC study reported that 54 percent of people who died by suicide had no known mental health condition, such as depression.
Authorities on workplace culture see those numbers as further evidence that employers should prioritize mental health initiatives for their employees. “Integrating mental health and wellness practices into an organization makes a huge difference for individuals and the company as a whole,” says Kerry Alison Wekelo (www.actualizeconsulting.com), a human resources expert and author of Culture Infusion: 9 Principles to Create and Maintain a Thriving Organizational Culture. “They know you care. As leaders are looking to improve their workplace, it’s vital to have employee mental health as a big part of the conversation. How employees feel directly impacts their contribution.” Work is the one of the most common sources of stress, according to the American Psychological Association’s latest survey. Stress can lead to mental illness or substance abuse, which can costs employers between $79 and $105 billion annually according to the Center for Prevention and Health Services. “Unhappy people create a negative work environment, which will cost you financially in absenteeism, decreased productivity and healthcare expenses,” Wekelo says. Wekelo lists four ways employers can increase awareness about mental health in the workplace and provide help in that regard for their employees:
About Kerry Alison Wekelo Kerry Alison Wekelo (www.actualizeconsulting.com) is managing director of human resources and operations for Actualize Consulting. She also is author of Culture Infusion: 9 Principles to Create and Maintain a Thriving Organizational Culture. Among her other accomplishments, Wekelo is a yoga teacher, life coach, award-winning author of children’s books, and the founder of Zendoway, a company that encourages holistic wellness.  Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash When an employer shows empathy – treating employees as human beings with feelings and not just workers who help produce profit – it can make a significant difference in the workplace, studies show. How much of a difference? A 2018 State of Workplace Empathy Study by Businessolver found that 96 percent of employees surveyed believed it was important for their employers to demonstrate empathy. On the other hand, 92 percent thought empathy remains undervalued.
And eight of 10 employees, HR professionals and CEOs agreed that an empathetic workplace has a positive impact on business performance, motivating workers and increasing productivity. It’s vital that company leaders show they care about their employees – especially when a life event, such as a family tragedy or a personal challenge, happens to the worker, says Kerry Alison Wekelo, a human resources expert and author of Culture Infusion: 9 Principles to Create and Maintain a Thriving Organizational Culture. “We often don't know what another person might be going through,” says Wekelo (www.actualizeconsulting.com). “Unfortunately, part of life is crisis, challenge, and the loss of loved ones. With a focus on people first and practicing empathy, it means so much to the employee both in the immediate and in the long-term. They’ll want to work there because they feel truly cared about.” Wekelo offers four ways business leaders can show their employees that they care:
About Kerry Alison Wekelo Kerry Alison Wekelo (www.actualizeconsulting.com) is managing director of human resources and operations for Actualize Consulting. She also is author of Culture Infusion: 9 Principles to Create and Maintain a Thriving Organizational Culture. Among her other accomplishments, Wekelo is a yoga teacher, life coach, award-winning author of children’s books, and the founder of Zendoway, a company that encourages holistic wellness. |