This week, we wrap up our conversation with Dr. Mo McCusker and Dr. Nikki Blacksmith, who share a secret to building self-awareness and succeeding at work. This episode may be short, but it is powerful.

To build self-awareness, you’ll hear that we need to seek knowledge of self, others, and us and what our emotions tell us.

 #selfawareness #curiousity #careersuccess 

This Bright & Wize episode with guests Dr. Mo McCusker and Dr. Nikki Blacksmith is jammed packed with insights and invaluable advice on how to embrace mistakes and failures versus fearing them.

As Nikki shares, a fear of failure is rooted in fear of looking foolish and how others will perceive us. She goes on to share that success is less about the mistake but rather how we handle it. When we take responsibility for our actions that might feel like a failure to us, others are more forgiving and will pitch in to help us fix it if needed. Mo shares that failure is a rite of passage in the start-up space and that teammates lift each other in work environments that accept mistakes will happen.

Listen to hear how mistakes and failures lead to success, why it is a mistake not to accept responsibility for our errors, and sage advice on steps to take to minimize the impact of our mistakes.

And you’ll want to hear the story Nikki shares about the brave professor who tweeted their CV, but it only included their failures. 

Another resource on this topic is the Brize app. It includes information on how to graciously accept responsibility for a mistake and then move on in the Intellectual Humility module. It also includes exercises to train our brains to look for the learnings in our failures.

#selfawareness #fearoffailure #softskills #humility

Over the last two weeks, Dr. Nikki Blacksmith and Dr. Mo McCusker have explained self-awareness, illustrated its value through the positive outcomes it produces, and guided us on how to develop this invaluable knowledge. This week Leslie shifts the focus of her discussion with Mo and Nikki to the barriers we can create to gaining greater self-awareness and performing at our best.

The first barrier they explore together is confidence and how low confidence can lead to self-handicapping or self-sabotaging behaviors. Subconsciously, we can create obstacles to our belief that we can succeed and achieve our goals.

#confidence #softskills #careersuccess #impostersyndrome #selfconfidence #selfesteem

This week Leslie is back with Dr. Nikki Blacksmith and Dr. Mo McCusker, continuing their discussion on the importance of self-awareness at work. In this episode, Nikki & Mo share guidance on how to tackle building greater self-awareness.  A couple of key takeaways is that self-awareness is not a one-and-done process; we are continuously evolving and truly developing self-awareness requires more than understanding ourselves and ourselves in relation to others. Listen to learn the "and then...."

The process of building greater self-awareness includes:

• Assessing our current abilities, values, and aspirations
• Reflecting on our actions, behaviors, skills, and output 
• Defining and developing any needed changes

#selfawareness #softskills #careererperformance  

 

This episode’s title is a declaration of why Leslie Ferry created the Bright & Wize podcast and the Brize app. Both aim to raise personal and other self-awareness to fuel career empowerment and success. 

Dr. Tasha Eurich coined self-awareness as the “meta-skill of the 21st century.” Dr. Nikki Blacksmith and Dr. Mo McCusker embody this belief and have dedicated their learning, research, and careers to empowering individual and team success through greater self-awareness and self-awareness in relation to others.

This is the first in several episodes where Nikki & Mo will share their expertise on the topics of: 

• Self-awareness. What it is and how it extends to learning about our colleagues at work.
• How it drives positive outcomes at work (and in life).
• How soft skills are critical to strengthening self-awareness.
• And finally, unknown barriers we all create to becoming self-aware and achieving our goals.

# careersuccess #selfawareness #softskills 

About mid-way through next season, which will start next week, we will explore the topic of different work styles. Our listeners will learn how unique approaches to work can be misinterpreted. For example, someone may be highly conflict adverse whose behavior may be interpreted as disinterested or lazy because they seem to be attempting to avoid work. When in reality, they will avoid conflict at all costs. Understanding our colleagues' unique work approaches, characteristics, or traits are key data points that enable us to build strong, trusting working relationships.

But before we get to that episode this week, we are sharing a replay of one of Leslie Ferry's (Brize founder and host of Bright & Wize) work experiences that demonstrate the benefits and importance of investing time to build strong work relationships. 

#teamwork #collaboration #buildworkrelationships

We have some exciting guests planned for season 3, which starts soon. In the meantime, we wanted to share some of our most actionable podcasts from Season 2, where Brize founder Leslie Ferry  explores 3 behaviors a growing number of employees are demonstrating that might be negatively impacting career productivity and growth. Leslie describes each behavior, shares how it is frustrating others, and provides a way to determine if you exhibit these behaviors. And then you'll hear actions you can take to adjust them.  

#careergrowth #selfawareness #intentionalthinking #criticalthinking #intellectualhumility 

We don’t walk around with a mirror at work, where we can watch ourselves to ensure our behaviors, body language, tone of voice, and actions demonstrate ourselves as we intend. Our intentions are misinterpreted by our co-workers more often than we realize.

One of the leading misinterpreted behaviors is how we share our opinions. We have invested time and energy to become subject matter experts. When we share our expert opinions, we express them with great confidence. We can sometimes be so sure in our opinions that we can appear to ignore or dismiss counter facts shared by others.

This extreme confidence can be interpreted as proving our intelligence, arrogance, or a need to be right.

When we subconsciously or consciously need to be right, we do not think objectively and miss important information that impacts our thoughts, ideas, and proposed strategies. This behavior frustrates others because, besides the lack of making others feel valued, we can miss information that might be critical to supporting our opinions and ideas for overcoming a problem and getting closer to the best solution. This need to demonstrate our intellect or to be right stalls progress for all.

In this potentially tricky topic podcast, we share ways to learn if you might be exhibiting this behavior and steps to take to change it.

This is the 2nd in a 3-part series of podcasts dedicated to exploring seemingly innocent behaviors that are frustrating managers and can stall an individual’s growth at work. 

 This week we tackle the topic of the rapid responses approach to work, with a stronger focus on getting something done versus producing high-quality work.

 At its core, this behavior is frustrating others because it stalls progress.

 In this podcast, Leslie revisits her conversation with Dr. Saundra Schrock to link our brain’s activities (default, automatic thinking) and prior experiences that lead us to respond quickly versus intentional, strategic thinking.

 Key topics covered include:

• Few to no answers to questions or problems at work have automatic answers.
• How automatic thinking leads to mistakes, lapses in judgment, & negative results.
• Developing foresight as the antidote to automatic thinking.

 Leslie shares a couple of exercises that help individuals measure their intentional thinking and steps to strengthen it.

 #careersuccess #strategicthinking #intentionalthinking 

This week we explore the frustrations being felt on both sides of the manager / employee work equation.

Employees become frustrated when they feel their manager hasn’t provided clear direction on how to move forward with a project or task.

Managers are increasingly frustrated by the evolution of new employee approaches to work. 

In the first of a 3-part series, we aim to reveal behaviors individuals may be unknowing exhibiting that are frustrating their managers and creating barriers to their career growth and development. For managers, we unearth the sources of these behaviors to help them better guide their team members to achieving their responsibilities and goals. 

In this episode, we explore asking questions, an innocuous, even helpful approach to work that drives some managers crazy.