Unlearning Early Life Lessons

Unlearning Early Life Lessons – by Arnie Wohlgemut

How many of us have a life dream, one we can articulate with clarity? A dream where we were also able to identify all the constraints, we “believe” will prevent us from achieving this dream?

Your current limitations are largely, if not entirely, perceived. We humans have the natural ability to allow our beliefs to alter our circumstances.

“Half of Wisdom is learning what to unlearn.”
Larry Niven

Learn to Unlearn

The first thing we are taught when learning to ride a bicycle or to down hill ski is to stop.

What if there was an equal focus on turning, keeping our balance, and pivoting under control so that our motion continues to be forward, as it was to learn how to stop?

Wouldn’t life be different for all of us?

One of the movies I have enjoyed watching many times is The Equalizer. In one part of the movie, the main character Robert McCall had detained a corrupt police detective, asking him to reveal his exit strategy. This line has stuck with me and has always made me think about my own “exit strategy”.

How many of us have a plan that includes a way to stop or exit when things get difficult or painful?

“Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.”
Rocky Balboa

Refuse to Give Up

One of the skills successful people learn is to pursue their dream with tenacity and determination.

They have learned to infuse their idea and dream with a sense of faith and a burning desire to achieve it.

My challenge for you and I is writing down our self-limiting beliefs and perceived current limitations, then, throw out that list. Repeat as necessary.

Unlearn the habit of stopping at the first sign of trouble or difficulty, learn the power of conviction, tenacity, and determination.

~

Arnie Wohlgemut is the Senior Consultant and President of KP Mylene & Associates “Building to Lead”, a leadership development and facilities management consulting company. He is passionate about supporting new or emerging leaders with unique and exciting resources that inspire them to reach their potential.

“Jellyfish” People

“Jellyfish” People – By Arnie Wohlgemut

Jellyfish are interesting creatures. They’re nearly invisible as they float through ocean waters. They don’t look the least bit threatening. But if part of your body touches them, well, let’s just say it’s not very pleasant! I understand it’s a self-protection response against predators. Yet if you hold them in your hand, they don’t sting.

I’ve met a few jellyfish in my life.

“Some cause happiness wherever they go, others, whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde

“Jellyfish” coworkers are those that float around and appear to be harmless. But if trouble gets too close, watch out! They leave their mark. Hold them “in your hand” and things calm down. All they really want is respect and to be left to do their job.

In management, I found one of my biggest challenge was to figure out how to get the “jellyfish” to participate – to work along with others yet give them the space to float along at their own speed and be successful. This took a lot of time and energy, but the reward was worth it!

“In the end, some of our greatest pains become our greatest strengths.”
Drew Barrymore

We all have “jellyfish” in our lives. Heck, we may have been a “jellyfish” ourselves. I found the minute I started to encourage, mentor, and empower my “jellyfish”; we were rewarded with the pleasure of success.

Dread, the Passive Roadblock to Action

Dread, the Passive Roadblock to Action – by Arnie Wohlgemut

Please save me from ______ (You fill in the blank). We all have things in life we dread (and avoid): cleaning the house, the morning Zoom call or commute; budget meetings; impromptu situations, you name it.

I DREAD annual performance review time. They are reportedly an important part of management, but it doesn’t accomplish anything! In my opinion, it is demoralizing and we all dread doing them. However, since I was told I had to do them as part of the job, I just dug in.

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
Dale Carnegie

But I’ve learned that I don’t have to operate in that “dread space”. Here’s what I learned:

Dread is the seed of fear. Dread consumes hope. Don’t kid yourself. Your mind is a powerful influencer and dread can set us up for a very bad day. Instead of hoping for a good drive home or a productive meeting, dread sets us up for a much worse experience.

Dread is simply expecting to have an unpleasant experience. If we have prepared ourselves for that meeting, we should be confident that it will be successful. If your meeting plan didn’t work out: get a new plan!

“It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.”
J.K. Rowling

Dread is passive. It doesn’t make things better, make it easier or even make it go away; it just sets you up for the fall. Dread leads to real fear and will stall the progress your team has made.

Dread can control you. It can be paralyzing. Don’t let it. When you feel dread coming on, remind yourself you know the pattern and dread doesn’t change a thing.

Anti-dread action. If you are having a bad day, take responsibility. You have control over your attitude. Make your mind up that you’re not going to dread anything.

The good news? You can choose not to be controlled by dread. But it will take courage. You can’t take the easy way out.

Confront your personal gaps. Your staff count on you. Be bold. Be the leader you can be!

Optimism, A Learned Mindset

Optimism, A Learned Mindset – by Arnie Wohlgemut

Success follows a positive mental attitude and learned optimism. Luck has nothing to do with it.

Martin Seligman wrote in his book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, “Optimism is the most important quality you can develop for personal and professional success and happiness”.

Optimism can be learned through practice and repetition. Here are 4 core behaviours:

“The most powerful personality traits to develop in one’s quest for success are incurable optimism and integrity.”
Amy Rees Anderson

Having a positive mindset is scientifically proven to boost happiness and motivate you to achieve your goals. Look for the good in every situation. No matter what goes wrong, they look for something good or beneficial.

“We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” – Santosh Kalwar

2. The dictionary defines life lessons as “something from which useful knowledge or principles can be learned”. Always seek the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. Understand that difficulties are not obstructions but instructions.

“Optimistic people seem to be more effective in almost every area of life.”
Martin Seligman

3. Become a problem solver. Good problem solvers are good thinkers. They have less drama and problems to begin with and they don’t get overly emotional when faced with a problem. Instead of complaining, take action. Ask questions like – what’s the solution? what do we do now?

“We become what we think about most of the time, and that’s the strangest secret.“
Earl Nightingale

Focus on your dream or your goal. Each of us have a dream. Some developed this dream as a child, others have a dream that has evolved or, has been slowly revealed in our conscience mind over time. Think about what you want, how to get it. Focus on moving forward rather than backwards.

Believe me, there have been days where I felt I was stuck on the freeway. But I have learned to stop and re-position my mind looking for the good, understanding the lesson, solving the problem and, again and again, focusing on the dream.

Learn to practice these 4 core behaviours and will become natural to you.

Creating A Path of Discovery

Creating A Path of Discovery. By Arnie Wohlgemut

It has been said so many times, and it is true. “The world around you has changed.”

How we do business, how we shop, work, and relax has changed. Most of all, this has developed into a season of self discovery.

“Most people don’t realize that a culture of asking permission creates one where many people’s self-worth is attached to their ability to receive permission.”
Dr Christine Northrup MD

1. Give yourself a permission slip. I first heard of a permission slip in middle school, where my parents would give permission for me to go on a school field trip. In leadership, giving yourself a permission slip could help you move forward.

Give yourself permission to automate, systematize or eliminate. Interestingly, this advise I give more than any other in my consulting and mentoring service. Many small routines are important, but they don’t need your undivided attention. Consider each so they could be either automated, systematized or eliminated, allowing you to focus on things that matter.

Give yourself permission to delegate. I am the first to admit that I have at times subscribed to the notion that, if you want it done right, do it yourself. This is a selfish way of modelling leadership. Leadership is not about you!

Give yourself permission to ignore. In my experience the constant flow of ideas and the “what if we …”, can be very exhausting. The only way to move forward is to ignore the sometimes-good ideas, so we can focus on the goal.

“We call some leader, not because they are in charge, but because they went first.”
Simon Sinek

2. Leaders are called to go first. The simplest advice one can give an emerging leader is to get out in front and lead. Sounds simple but it may not always be.

Leading out front takes many forms and requires strong leadership characteristics, one of which is self-control. Every leader will have its share of critics. As humans we often feel that we need to defend our actions. As I heard George W Bush say in an interview, “don’t respond to criticism because that’s not leading. When you respond, you become a follower”.

“Speaking last as an authority figure can do wonders for your team’s sense of accountability and ownership; you’re reacting to the points they’ve made, rather than anchoring them to your own.”
Luba Koziy

3. Leaders are calling to speak last. Nelson Mandela shared a story about his father. As a senior and respected leader of the community, he would always be the last to speak in a gathering of other leaders. His father knew that if he spoke first, it would shape the conversation in the direction the others perceived he would want. In this simple act of speaking last, he created a path of discovery.

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
Mother Teresa

4. Act. Take a close look at the first three points, all require action. Without action, the next lane of discovery would never be found. The notion that you have no power to affect change is false.

Whether you are on a path of self discovery, rediscovering the passion for your business or re-establishing a relationship strained by the pandemic, you don’t know what you can do unless you try.

The Exception Practices of Great Leadership

The Exception Practices of Great Leadership. By Arnie Wohlgemut

I believe that we are living in an age of reckoning, needing to address past actions and the “normal” we created for ourselves.

This has everything to do with how we have and continue to treat each other. The beliefs that we have copied from others, and our profit focused capitalism.

Being a true great leader often requires us to practice exceptions to the rules. Being different from what’s modelled around us. I believe that a healthy workplace culture is one that has mutual respect for other experiences and viewpoints. Not an assimilation into one particular mindset.

Let us look at some exceptions that are foundational in helping to transform your workplace. A word of caution, each one requires courage.

Exception #1. Give your entire team a voice. Right now, today. Give new staff a voice on their first day. Having a culture where open conversations and nonjudgmental listening is practiced, will move your team closer to the dream.

“One of the most important acts of leadership is to simply let others lead. Recognize that, especially in a crisis, people want to step up; they want to be given more responsibility.”
-Barbara Humpton

Exception #2. Give them authorization to make some decisions. This requires both insight and intuition on your part.

Just like a quarterback on a football team, you need to know who should run with the ball and who is in the best position to catch the ball. Using this practice can create forward motion towards the goal.

“Creating a sense of purpose is integral in motivating and inspiring a team. Be sure to spend time thinking about your own ‘why’ so you can better help your team understand theirs.”
Jim Citrin

Exception #3. Find what inspires them and what deflates their spirit. The mistake many leaders make is thinking “one size fits all”.

Each person is an individual, not a copy or a clone. There may be overlapping or common items that deflate members of your team. In my experience, being indecisive and inconsistent are the most powerful spirit deflators.

“Members of a team often have a pretty good idea of what they would like to achieve in their organization. And if you ask them to dream and to stretch and to expand beyond their usual performance, they will often do just that.”
Lance Secretan

Exception #4. Throw out mission and vision statements. Most people could not tell you what yours is! Identify your dream, the reason you are in business. Share your dream.

In the recent Olympics, there was no athlete or team that had a mission statement, they all had a dream. One one that they envisioned and worked hard to achieve on the world stage.

In the workplace, we have failed many times to be inspiring and have our team members feel they are valued.

Your history has absolutely nothing to do with your potential to lead in an exceptional way. Be courteous and practice the exceptions of great leadership.

Happiness…blah blah blah

Happiness…blah blah blah – by Arnie Wohlgemut

“You can never outperform your own self-image.” Maxwell Maltz

When we were children, the likelihood that we were happy was much greater. We would play with our toys, with games and our neighbourhood friends for hours.

As we got older, expectations were added to our everyday life such as good grades, choosing better friends, and selecting a career path.

How many of us were encouraged to find a well-paying job with a title? The pressure may not only have come from family but also our peers. The pursuit of success, measured by salary and job title, does not consider the effect it has on our mindset.

I was fortunate. My parents encouraged us to find a career that we could naturally succeed in. They wanted us to have a better start in life than they did after WWII.

Somehow, they knew, that starting out in a career, that naturally fit our adolescent abilities, would open doors for us to find our real purpose in life. The goal was to have us strive for something, knowing it may be tweaked along the way.

“Purpose is not about achieving an objective – it is more of a way of life. Purpose is rooted in emotion, it’s enduring, and firm.” – Paul Dupuis and Marshall Goldsmith

Early in my working career, I spent time working in various production facilities as an electrician. I would often wonder as I looked around the plant, why someone would willingly work a metal stamping press for over 20 years.

Many years later it occurred to me that these hard-working folks had no intention in finding happiness at work! The paycheck provided them with the means to live their life the way they wanted, and to create the happiness that best suited their lifestyle.

It was easy to turn off work at the exit door – what a luxury. The job paid for their car, house, cottage and in some cases other luxuries like boats.

“We cannot poison the well and then complain about the water.” – Steven Furtick

As with many things, we learn from those around us. Finding a way to be thankful and happy in many of life’s situations was not usually one of them.

We spend too much time comparing ourselves to others or striving to be perfect. Then, when we fail to meet that mark, we poison the water with the fear that we are never good enough.

Perfectionism is rooted in fear, writes leadership expert Sally Helgesen. This fear spurs us to focus on our energies on checking all the boxes and rigorously avoiding even the possibility of mistakes.

I am not saying we should not be trying to do the best we can in every situation and try to improve our skills and abilities – but not at the cost of your happiness or the realization of our life’s purpose.

Fortunately, there are also many people who are happy. They have chosen to be happy despite what is happening around them. Even through the pandemic.

Are you one of them?

“There is no need to keep your happiness secret, suppress it, or bury it under complaints and outrage,” writes Arthur C. Brooks in an article for The Atlantic. “And if the state of the world, has you genuinely down in the dumps, remember that finding and spreading cheer in an imperfect world, will make life better for you, and make your efforts at progress that much more effective.”

Start today, spread some cheer, a kind word, or a helping hand. The world needs people like you to show the way.

10 Jobs I Never Listed in My Resumes

10 Jobs I Never Listed in My Resumes – by Arnie Wohlgemut

I recently read a book by Julio Melara called “It Only Takes Everything You’ve Got!” In it he includes a chapter – The Value of Failing.

In this chapter he lists jobs he had and never spoke about. The lessons he learned through those experiences, have lasted a lifetime.

What an interesting idea — after all, reflection turns experience into insight.

“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.”
Steven Wright

So here goes, a little insight into my journey from searching for a possible career, to the time where I needed a little extra cash, and the lessons that have lasted a lifetime:

1. Construction Labourer: my first summer job. I was 14 years old and my role as a helping hand was digging trenches.

Lesson learned: Education was in my future. I do not want to do this again, ever!

2. Electrician’s helper (age 15).

Lesson learned: Working with someone who is willing to teach you is priceless.

3. Stock boy for an electrical contractor.

Lesson learned: Supporting roles are important too! If the job’s going to get done, all the parts need to be in stock.

4. Grocery bag packer at the supermarket.

Lesson learned: Know what matters to the customer! Not squishing their bread earns you a tip.

“It seems the light at the end of the tunnel may be you.”
Steven Tyler

5. Waste management crew at the supermarket (Yes, this was a promotion).

Lesson learned: Taking out the garbage and recycling without making a mess is an essential life-skill!

6. Overnight shift electrician in an auto parts factory.

Lesson learned: Life is too short to spend it in a job you hate.

7. Electrical maintenance on a farm.

Lesson learned: Someone must do the job no one else wants to do.

8. Electrical maintenance crew in a textile mill.

Lesson learned: Removing obstacles that cause friction allows others to focus on their tasks. It is important to have well-oiled machines, friction starts fires.

“Some things in life start as a duty and then become a blessing.”
Steven Furtick

9. Trainee in a car detailing shop.

Lesson learned: The little details sometimes feel like they will not matter but those details are valuable to someone.

10. Part-time bartender.

Lesson learned: Even casual connections can be put a smile on a customer’s face. People love it when you remember their name (and their drink of choice).

So, there you have it, a short walk in my shoes – so to speak. What are your lessons learned?

Are You the Real McCoy?

Are You the Real McCoy? – by Arnie Wohlgemut

The real McCoy was the inventor, Elijah McCoy, born in Canada in 1844. He had many different inventions of which included an ironing board, a lawn sprinkler and his 1st invention, a lubricator system for gears, and other moving parts on steam engines. Other companies copied his devices, but they never worked as well as Elijah’s so, people would say, “I want the real McCoy”, and “make sure it is a real McCoy.”

As a leader, are you the real McCoy?

As we turn the corner out of the deep challenges the pandemic has created and provided us, life will change. I truly do not believe that what we will return to the “normal” that we had before.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus

Life is a series of experiences, twists, and turns, providing lessons after lessons to learn. All of these may have a lasting impact on what we are willing or not willing to give up.

For some this pandemic has been life changing, and for others it has been devastating. The opportunity here is that you will have to work with and lead people to a new normal.

“Tough times reveal character.” – Carly Fiorino

Last August, in the middle of the pandemic I attended the GLS20 virtual online conference. One of the speakers, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, noted that “we shouldn’t have needed a pandemic to remind ourselves that people, societies, organizations, and cultures are generally better off when their leaders are smart, kind, and honest.”

How true is that! I agree with him when he identified that honesty, or as we love to call it – integrity – is the most important.

Some leaders are good in many situations, some are just bad in every situation. The leadership character you reveal is the one you have chosen to cultivate.

“Research shows that feeling like you matter at work isn’t a generational preference or “nice to have”. It’s a fundamental human need.” – Simon Sinek

Now is the time to use all that leadership knowledge you have gained and start leading!

Listen to your people, work at meeting their needs, not their wants. This is the only way to be “the real McCoy”.

As the quote from Simon Sinek says, “what all of us need is to be valued and know we matter. Be consistent, clear, and honest, it is the only way to be an inspiring leader.

Murphy’s Law Revisited

Murphy’s Law Revisited. – By Arnie Wohlgemut

Murphy’s Law should never have been written. Here it is, if you have already wiped it from your memory: “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

Once you allow that to be your way of thinking, you are stuck.

“Be the hero of your own story. You are born to turn your mess into a message and the test into a testimony.”
Farshad Asl

I am happier today then I have ever been. In many ways I am ‘living the dream’. I am doing what I have dreamed about – and I love it.

Now do not get me wrong. Not everything is awesome in my life. I have barriers and challenges – pretty much everyday.

But I do not zero in on everything that was wrong in my life.

Gareth, a pastor friend of mine once spoke about disappointments and how we all have them. Not the “dog ate my burger before I could take a bite” type of disappointment. The type when a close friend betrays you; a family member steals from you; your kids believe lies told about you, and stop speaking to you during a divorce; an injustice at work; or the senseless killing of innocent children around the world…

I could go on and I am sure many of you could too but … STOP.

Think about it!

Could you also list the good things that happen to you? Do you have an attitude of never giving up on your friends, family, your kids, the world?

“The most dangerous thing in the world is to have no purpose.”
T. D. Jakes

There is an old saying, “you are what you eat”. Not what I am talking about but, you will become WHAT you think and WHAT you feed your mind.

There are so many angry people who are bent on fighting for what they want – rarely looking at the bigger picture. That anger feeds into daily life.

As I continue to develop my personal philosophy about life, I realize that I don’t want anger and disappointment to eat at me. It is a colossal waste of precious time. I can choose. What I choose will hugely impact how I feel about myself, how I approach the challenges I meet and how I relate to my work colleagues.

I choose to live with vision and expectation – not with anger bound by disappointment.

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