PSA: A message from your socially conscious friends.

Communication skills are a SKILL. Not an inherent talent. Let’s put the introvert and extrovert labels aside and talk about social politeness. In this season of social obligations and opportunities, there is a right and wrong way to conversate.

#ChallengeToLead

As my friend recently said, “there’s a time for learning and there’s a time for earning.”

Let’s talk about the first as it leads into the second. And let’s talk about making space for creativity. In my eyes there are 2 kinds of creativity - for your soul and for your future. Sometimes it satisfies both!

#ChallengeToLead

Asking for feedback is hard.

Unfortunately that’s the position we people with a bit of knowledge find ourselves in.

In high school you go through freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years. Sophomore loosely translates as “wise fool”. It’s near the beginning of the journey - just enough knowledge to make you dangerous!

Even the most seasoned leaders seek out experienced people and solicit advice. Why wouldn’t a novice - or intermediate person - do the same?

#ChallengeToLead

Oh the people are so delightful

(That was not my best poetry 🙂)

Every year 7F puts on these epic multi-day events and one of the things the show runners drill into our heads is energy management. No one knows where you’re at energy wise, and it’s your job to recognize the signs and find a time to recharge when you need to. That way you can show up as your best self when you need to. It’s so obvious but not. And I can’t help but think… there’s wisdom in that for every season!

Every year we help open up the family Christmas tree farm in Massachusetts. It’s a beautiful way to kick off the season. From a business perspective, there are some really cool things to see. Know who your leaders are. Set up a succession plan. Let your people focus in the area where they do best and don’t ask them to do all the things. Take time to train the next generation.

#ChallengeToLead

Tactical Wednesday: grow up your next leaders. Think strategically about your organization and who you can empower to handle certain things. The goal is to slowly offload pieces of your role so you can focus on overseeing the objective and not the tactics. *includes stories of fiesty middle schoolers*

#ChallengeToLead

How much do global economics matter to most leaders?

#ChallengeToLead

During this season, get your kids out and spending time with people. Yes, they'd rather be home alone on their devices. Just like they'd rather have candy every meal of the day, not brush their teeth, never exercise, or spend time studying or learning.

It's our job to protect all of their health, and mental health is linked to having healthy relationships with other people, and having a sense of belonging. You can't get a sense of belonging without friends. You can't get friends without learning social skills, or being in proximity to people that just *may* end up being your friend. I think that's the parents job: teach them social skills and put them in positions to practice and find their people.

And then once you get them out with people, give them some conversation fodder. "What do you like to do?", "What music do you like to listen to?", "What school subject do you like best?", "What's a cool project you're working on?"

Did you know - it takes about 40-60 hours to become casual friends with someone? So if you do something with someone 1 hour a week - every week - it will take nearly a year to form a casual friendship.

It takes about 80-100 hours to become a real friend. And over 200 hours to become "good" friends. It's not really a surprise that friendship is based on shared experiences and time - help them start that journey! And when they say, "I don't know those people, we have nothing in common!", the only way to know people is to talk to them. The only way to know if you have something in common with them is to talk to them. There's no shortcut or secret sauce. (Actually, there is. The secret to making friends is to ask them for help. But that's another post.)

It takes effort, attention, and motivation. And the opposite - sitting home and watching TV or devices - while immediately gratifying, is also really bad for future mental health.

They have found a strong link to alone time and to feelings of hopelessness and despair. "Relative to 2013 the average American teenager spends 11 fewer hours with friends each week with friends. That's a 66% decline." Alone time is not a bad thing. Hopelessness and despair are.

Is this uncomfortable? Yep! Peopling is uncomfortable. But you know what isn't? That moment when you start sharing amazing deep belly laughs. Give your kids the gift of future laughter by getting them to spend time with people now.

If you want to hear more on this topic, I recommend the recent Plain English podcast episode on it.

Accountability is my jam. Through the years I’ve realized that the trick is knowing what phase someone is in. There are 3.

1. I want to change but don’t know where to start.

A lot of people are in the 2nd category. That used to make me really irritated. Why? No good reason really, except that I was tired of hearing about the change they want to make and frustrated that they wouldn’t just do it already. That’s not really a good reason to be mad at someone. But I’m Irish, and being feisty is a little bit in my DNA 😉

Then I realized that the “talking about it” is actually PART of the “doing it”. Most of our reality is a manifestation of the stories we tell ourselves. We change that story slowly. By talking about it. By trying it on. By receiving feedback. By talking some more. It’s an iterative process.

So accountability is my jam because I’ve learned to push people to see if they are ready to move from Phase 2 to Phase 3. And then to pick up on the nuances that indicate that shift is coming and press the point.

Once people are in Phase 3, accountability is just cheerleading and caring about their journey.

Most leaders are really good at doing and incredibly frustrated by inaction. They assume that words mean action will soon follow.

If you want to be good at helping people hit their goals, you have to pick up on the whether they are ready to be in Phase 3 and if not - what goal CAN they tackle that will move them closer on the continuum?

#ChallengeToLead