Self Leadership and
The New Leadership Playbook
Blog by Andrew Bryant

“Get out of your comfort zone.”

We have all heard this advice, whether as a cliché from a Motivational Speaker or in a Social Media meme. But is this B.S? And by B.S. I mean a Belief System!

The belief system (B.S.) in this advice is that we employ the courage to try new things and as such is sound; but how much is too much? Consider the following:

• The human body has very specific comfort zones for things like temperature, blood glucose, and atmospheric oxygen. For example, humans can survive for periods in double-digit zero degrees centigrade and although our cells start to die at 41c, people can survive a day trip to Death Valley which reaches highs of 55c.
• On waking this morning, your fasting blood sugar should be under 100 mg/dl, but if you have just had a good breakfast or lunch it’s likely to be around 140 mg/dl. If you are not a diabetic, your body has a sophisticated method for keeping your blood sugar in a ‘comfort zone’. Too high...

If you have ever tortured yourself over a setback or failure, or ever wondered if successful people do something different, then have I got news for you.

"Set-backs and failures are part of life, and if you are an entrepreneur or leader, how you handle set-backs and failures will determine your long-term success."

With 20 years of experience as an Executive Coach,  I have learned the power of questions, and in this post, I will share with you some self-coaching questions you ask yourself.

Read on, or Watch the Video

Quality Controlling your Questions will determine the quantity of your Control. I have been guilty, in the past, of the self-indulgence of asking,

“Why me?”

When the world appeared to conspire against me. Or the self-recriminating question of.

“What did I do wrong?”

When things did not go as planned. Perhaps you have caught yourself asking the same questions, but did you know there are better questions?

Questions that move you...

Think of the most confident person you know. Think of how they stand, how they hold the space, and how, when they speak, everyone listens. This is Executive Presence.

Executive Presence Definition 

"Executive Presence is the ability to project confidence and gravitas (substance) under pressure."

In addition, a person with executive presence can present effectively and has the ability to 'read the room', so that they can influence an audience.

In a complex, fast-paced world it is vital to be noticed, heard, and trusted. Executive Presence is therefore an essential competency for both individual contributors and leaders.

Executive Presence as a Career Strategy

In my 20+ years of experience as an executive coach, working with C-level executives and those that want to crack the C-Suite, I have observed that those who are successful have mastered executive presence. You can start building your executive presence by reading these 12 strategies for career success.

...

You hear the MC say, “Please welcome to the stage, our Keynote Speaker”.

Is your heart racing? Are your palms sweaty? Are you wondering what you are going to say?

Public speaking is purported to be the number 1, fear or phobia, beating out the fear of death, so why would you want to be a Keynote Speaker, and if you do, how can you be good at it?

I have been a Global Conference Speaker for over 20 years, and I have coached and mentored hundreds of executives and upcoming speakers to present with poise and confidence, to leave a lasting impact on their audiences.

Keynote Speaker – or Main-Stage Talk?

Sometimes the term ‘Keynote Speaker’ gets misused; it’s like someone who has posted a blog on HBR calling themselves a ‘Harvard Business Review’ columnist.

A keynote speech is a presentation, usually of 20 to 60 minutes, that establishes a main underlying theme, framework, or ‘big idea’ of the conference or...

I was once working with a CEO to help get his senior leaders to be more open to input from multiple sources, including younger employees.

“Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas”, he said.

“Wow!”, I thought. What a great mantra for diversity, inclusion, leadership, management, and just common sense.

But as Winston Churchill once remarked, “Nothing is as uncommon as common sense”.

Why are Inclusive Leadership and Diversity of Thought not more common?

Well, the human mind is hard-wired to consider ideas and perspectives from our own tribe as superior to those from the outside. This human tendency leads to political partisanship, regardless of the facts, and can lead to a senior leadership team that looks the same and thinks the same. The dangers of this ‘we are right, everybody else is wrong’ mindset is obvious; especially in times of rapid change, when past ways of doing things are losing or have lost their relevancy. 

If a closed...

I clicked on the link in the email and the video from a motivational speaker began to play; it revealed a surprising truth.

This well-known ‘Success Coach’ starts by telling us that he works with billionaires with big houses, cars, and expensive watches, BUT these people are empty and insecure on the inside. In guru-like fashion he tells me that:

“The door to success doesn’t open outward, but inward”

He goes on to expand on the virtue of working on our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical selves.

So far, so good. As a Self-leadership author and Motivational Speaker, myself, I’m fully aligned with the message. But then, comes the twist.

In the next part of his pitch, he tells us that if we do all this ‘inner work’, we can have houses, cars, and expensive watches. That my external wealth will be in direct proportion to my inner growth!

"WHAT THE BLEEP!"

Did he not just tell us that all the people with the big houses, cars, and...

In 2010, a shy Spanish-speaking South American woman, leaves her home and family to start a challenging new job in Singapore.

I asked her, what she was thinking and feeling at that time. “I was very afraid,” she said. “But I thought I would be good because I was invited to be part of a big project.”

Then, what was she afraid of? “Of meeting people better than me”, she said.

Does this resonate? Do you compare yourself with others, and give them more credibility than you give yourself?

I asked Victoria (not her real name, not her photo) what she thought she brought to the job, and what strengths she had that would enable her to be good.

“I am very focused and understand the complexity of projects, I can work with different people from different cultures and build trust.”

I asked her, “How many people in the world can do what you do, the way you do it?” And her answer was, “Not very many”. So, I asked why she...

In our 2012 book 'Self-leadership' my co-author, Ana Kazan Ph.D. and I make the following statement:

"There are no fairy godmothers - If you want to be transformed, to be free, you must do the work; you are the hero, you are your own savior."

It is a truism that life is not fair. We are not all born with parents who validate our self-esteem and provide opportunities for us to learn and grow; sometimes circumstances are downright cruel. But success is measured not by what you have but by how much you have grown inside, and this comes by motivating yourself to overcome obstacles and live with purpose.

In fact, those that have ‘moved the dial’ or ‘achieved the delta’ by going from a D grade to a C, and a C to a B are much more resilient than those who have always gotten A’s.

The Hero’s Journey

Mythologist Joseph Campbell tracked the hero's journey, a common theme in all cultures (and Hollywood), which is the process by which...

I’m often asked, how I got started as a Motivational Speaker and Self-leadership champion, and so I’m sharing this interview by Success Resources, Singapore, which answers these questions for you.

Could you share your story of how you began your journey to becoming one of the best Motivational Speakers in Singapore, and achieving the success that you have today?

Sure, I started my career as a Physiotherapist in the U.K. in the early 80’s. I was working with sports teams and athletes and soon realized that success was as much mental as physical. I studied psychology, NLP, hypnosis, meditation, and even Chinese medicine to help my clients get a competitive edge. When I moved to Australia, I continued to coach athletes but kept getting asked to coach business people to use their minds to be successful. Because of the impact, I was having on performance on and off the field I began to coach and speak about my approach and my Self-leadership Methodology.

...

To succeed in any organization, you must understand 'office politics'. The first rule is to be visible, doing good work is not enough if you're not associated with it. You must learn to shine.

Let me tell you about Chris who's an experienced pharmaceutical Healthcare Executive. He delivered results as a sales head early in his career and had been moved to head office in Europe in an administrative role.

Chris made everything run smoothly. However, he did it in an under-the-radar manner, so when he wanted to step up to a country manager role he was not deemed ready.

Chris had not followed the first rule of office politics:  

BE VISIBLE!

The Visibility Rule

How could Chris have gained visibility instead of just quietly making things efficient?

1. He could have first alerted Senior Management to the cost of the inefficiencies
2. He could have let people know that he was going to resolve the issues
3. He could have socialized the benefits of the Improvement in addition
4. He could have been...