What do you mean by bringing your best self to work? Unfortunately, with several competing priorities in the workplace, you sometimes lose the actions that may help you be the best you can be for yourself, your clients, and your colleagues. Let’s find out what it means and how you can bring your best self to work.
What Does It Mean to Bring Your Best Self to Work?
Newton’s law of motion teaches us that an object in motion stays in motion unless force is applied. This law applies to each of us as well. If you want to find your passion, you must put passion into your actions. If you’re going to have more energy, you have to move more. As energy creates energy, passion creates passion. Everybody wants positive, energetic people around them, especially at work where you spend eight hours a day and even more. At times you see your colleagues more than your parents or spouse.
When you look around you, your team, colleagues, and bosses, certain people make you feel that life is far from boring when they enter the room. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are the life of the party. It’s more like they are full of life. They reap what they have sown. Those around them respond to their positive attitude and are paying it forward in their way. Such people arrive at the workplace in the morning, ready to conquer obstacles and succeed. They are willing to cover that extra mile to break through the glass and bring innovation with what they have.
These people are bringing their best selves to work!
All people at work feed on each other’s energy, and it is great to see everyone embracing it in their way. However, this is not something you can switch on as you walk in the door. It takes more than just having a smiling face. What you do outside your workplace determines the true attitude you will bring to it. Perhaps most of you focus on excelling at your work, but you sometimes forget that whatever you do beyond work and on the weekends is a prime marker of your success.
Bringing your best self to work includes investing in yourself, being mindful of what you make up for your time, and having fun in whatever you do.
Friend. Star. Director. Creator. Searcher. Which one are you?
What if you get a chance to listen to your eulogy when you are still there? What do people appreciate about you the most? So, take time to think about what you are like when you are at your best and having the best effect on everybody else. While doing this, part of your brain lights up, producing zest and enthusiasm.
Anyone who can work in an office can tell you which work personas you fall into based on your personality, job description, and skill set. Though having a certain workplace niche might be comfortable, staying stuck in your comfort zone can hinder your professional growth. Also, they can negatively impact your wallet as well. On the other hand, when you align some personality traits with the job you desire could mean extra earning power.
When it comes to success in the workplace, your personality matters a lot. It is not enough to manifest new traits. You must be bold to show them.
To understand and change your persona at the workplace, you must first know what it is. Think about how you behave at work usually and then look at these typical personas. You are likely to identify with more than one, but find out which one you fit best.
The Friend enjoys connecting and networking with others. Building solid relationships is its strength, and the main challenge is to balance work and play.
The Star aims to be recognized for its success in its career. They meet deadlines and deliver high-quality work. The main thing they struggle at perfectionist tendencies.
The Director thrives and flourishes in leadership positions. They have the quality to manage people as well as various tasks. But they also struggle when it comes to delegating tasks.
The Creator is driven by innovation and creativity. They can find solutions to problems at any time. But the everyday task can easily bore them.
The Searcher gets motivated by the desire to make a difference. Searchers have the drive to progress forward and help others.
How to Bring Your Best Self to Work?
Here we are talking bout How to Bringing Your Best Self to Work?
Be Authentic
The basis of bringing your best self to work is authenticity. It is about showing up honestly with vulnerability and without self-righteousness. Undoubtedly it takes courage to be authentic, and it is essential for growth, trust, and connection. You can do certain simple things to be more authentic at work, like admitting wherever you are wrong, not knowing something, or asking for help in a polite, genuine way. All of these need courage and require you to embrace and let go of your need to be correct.
Studies have shown that more authentic leaders engage in constructive, active conflict behaviours, admitting their part in creating conflict or widening the lens to consider alternate viewpoints. Being authentic is imperative to resolve conflict at work positively and productively. In addition, it has been tied to less burnout as it helps you deal with jobs involving emotional labour more easily.
EQ or emotional intelligence is about having self-awareness and being able to handle your emotions. Besides, it is also about being socially aware of yourself and managing relationships. Emotional intelligence is more important for success than your IQ, experience, and professional skills. Employers value emotional intelligence more than other job skills. Moreover, it is important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the antonym of intelligence. It is not the victory of the heart over the head. Simply it is the unique intersection of both.
A greater emotional intelligence quotient can help prevent burnout from a job and improve performance on some tasks. The most excellent way to build emotional intelligence is to cultivate regular heedfulness. Take some time to pause, breathe and centre yourself regularly, allowing you to be more aware and manage your emotions more effectively. Also, mindfulness leads to more understanding and compassion for others, which helps you manage your relationships successfully.
Engage in Self-Reflection
The most important values-based leadership tool is self-reflection. It is the intentional practice of taking time almost daily to step back and see inward to have clarity on your priorities and values. You can identify whatever matters to you the most through self-reflection. Also, recognize what gives you more confidence in your decision-making. Otherwise, you will move from one activity to another and from crisis to crisis without making any sense of purpose or direction. Like everyone, when you get off track at times, self-reflection will bring you back to the centre and help you steer the challenges you are facing.
Moreover, self-reflection can counteract stress, pressure, anxiety, fear, and worry by first throwing light on what you are feeling and staying grounded in reality.
Look for Learning Opportunities
Learning should always be a top priority in your day-to-day activities. Every day, set aside 10 minutes to read, listen to, or watch anything that will help you work better. You may try to learn a new skill once a month or check if your coworkers can teach you something. For example, if you see a coworker with a strong work ethic who completes tasks quickly, speak with them and learn from their practices.
Embrace a Mindset of Growth
It means approaching your life and work with the intent to understand that you can improve anything if you are willing to practice, work hard and dedicate yourself. It is about looking at everything you experience, including your challenges, as opportunities for learning and growth. There is a vast difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, where the belief is that a person is born with innate gifts, whether they have them or not, and this cannot be changed.
People with a growth mindset are more likely to have a sense of commitment to their organization and support risk-taking than their fixed-mindset peers. When you try new things, especially the ones that push you out of your comfort zone and scare you, it’s an incredible way to practice having a growth mindset.
Turn Weaknesses into Strengths
Most people can identify a career-limiting habit readily. Besides, managers of the organizations have reported that only ten per cent of employees showed a change a year after a performance review. Most of you assess your weaknesses but do not always take steps to correct your career-limiting behaviours. It would help if you changed the behaviour by following the points given below:
Recognize and pay attention to anxious moments. When you’re dreading giving a big presentation at work and continually checking your email, you’re not only being distracted but also acting out a habitual anxiety and stress reaction.
Stay with it if you find yourself in this situation. Substitute a purposeful, well-thought-out alternate action for the ineffective behaviour. To allow yourself time to breathe, drink a glass of water.
Then consider what you might be able to do instead. “What do I actually want now?” you might wonder. And think about how you’re going to get there.
Avoid Distraction
When working in front of a computer, the average person is distracted or disturbed every 40 seconds. We can’t work for more than a minute without being interrupted! Find simple techniques to overcome everyday self-sabotaging behaviours to improve your professional performance.
If you’re having trouble organizing data, take a break from your work and go for a stroll. Alternately, move to a new location. Similarly, face down your phone to avoid being distracted by continual notifications. Finally, make time for solitude throughout your workday to avoid feeling worried or overwhelmed by little setbacks.
Make the Most of the Appreciation Power
Showing gratitude is necessary for making amazing connections, strengthening teams, and keeping negative events in perspective. It’s not the same as expressing thanks, though. Sometimes you mix the two up, particularly in professional settings. However, recognition is based on performance or outcomes, what people produce or do, while appreciation is based on who they are or people’s inherent worth.
You want to do everything you can to appropriately recognize positive outcomes such as sales, implemented ideas, and completed projects. But there is a breathing human being behind every achievement or failure. Regardless of the outcome, appreciation is about emphasizing your gratitude for people’s efforts and the human characteristics and qualities they possess that you value, such as kindness, humility, or humour. It’s something you can say whenever you want.
Gratitude is a close relative of appreciation. It can transform workplaces. In addition, it also brings employees greater happiness, job satisfaction, health benefits, and better relationships with coworkers.
To Conclude
Bringing your best self to work means approaching your job with a sense of playfulness and being fully aware of your own and others’ flawed humanness. It entails a willingness to stand out. There is no single model for what authenticity in the workplace should look like. On the other hand, authenticity allows you to be vulnerable, inquiring, and deliberate in your own way. You become your bravest and boldest selves at work when you take advantage of this opportunity. You develop and adapt in tandem with your organizations.
When the actions mentioned above – speaking up, taking chances, and accepting responsibility are modelled and encouraged, especially by individuals in leadership positions, the team and the environment become as psychologically safe as possible. On the surface, these notions appear to be very simple. However, similar to several important aspects of growth, business, and life, it is not their understanding that creates a difference. It is their application.
Before we talk about the basics of critical thinking we must know about critical thinking. Critical thinking can be defined as the ability to reason critically and skillfully, generate ideas, and analyze them to get the best result out of a situation. It can also be said that critical thinking is the ability of thinkers to engage in reflective and independent thinking.
Naturally, as humans, we tend not to get involved in things that are not profitable or things that will not benefit us in any way. In this article, we will be discussing the basics of critical thinking. Critical thinkers do not rush into making decisions; they judge every situation and idea rather than accepting them as they were. Critical thinkers are more active learners than passive recipients of the information.
At some decision-making points in our lives, we make mistakes and run into making wrong decisions. A critical thinker thinks about the possibility of arriving at the same solution with the best possible solution. Thinking critically puts a person in control of situations and circumstances. Although, as emotional beings, we can be ruled by our emotions and quickly have some background decisions made in our hearts already, even at this, we must analyze every situation. It is often said that only a fool rush into making decisions, critical decisions that can change their lives.
It is possible that some life happenings might not make one remember to analyze some of the situations at that particular moment, and those moments require answers.
Critical thinking can also mean the ability to mentally process situations and circumstances and analyze ideas to give the desired answer or solution. This is the process of evaluating situations and not depending on formal or already known answers but digging deep into matters and then arriving at a better and most suitable solution or answer. There is a famous saying that “It is easier said than done,” this means that it is easy when we say some things, but the actual applications of these words are not what we practice.
Critical thinking is needed in all areas of life to make good decisions. The endpoint of critical thinking is to arrive at a problem-solving state; this is needed in our workplace, marriage, family, and other decision-making areas of our lives. A critical thinker is a problem solver. Somebody might want to know why critical thinking is essential. We have to go through the stress to think and analyze situations to get the better and the most reliable solutions to problems.
Basics of Critical Thinking?
To be a critical thinker, you must understand the rudiments of critical thinking. You cannot engage in critical thinking without understanding what steps are involved in it or how to go about it. The most successful professionals are people with the best critical thinking skills. For example, there will be times when doctors will be faced with challenges to treat a patient with an unknown ailment.
And don’t show a reasonable number of symptoms to affirm what sickness the person is suffering from; the doctor might lose the patient if they do not combine expertise with critical thinking. It happens to all professionals, be it the engineers, lawyers, architects, and so on.
The first step a person takes to engage in critical thinking is to analyze the situation. The analysis gives you a broad view of the issue; you can gather information and relevant data from there. It exposes you to new things that you haven’t come across before, thereby extending your knowledge base when you analyze situations. If a situation is not well analyzed, the most suitable and effective solution will not arrive.
For professionals like building contractors and architects need to analyze the project they are giving before starting because if they don’t do so, they might end up at a loss. The analysis opens your eyes to issues even if you are not familiar with them, it takes you around the situation, and from there, you begin to think about what the solutions would be.
Interpretation:
Once you have the needed information and relevant data, interpretation is the next step. You need to find common ground amongst all the relevant information that you have. The goal of interpretation is to make connections between ideas and convert them to actionable ideas. Interpretation allows you to turn abstract ideas into achievable solution models. Interpretation gives you an insight into angles more than you have known before. It offers flexibility such that one is short of ideas; once one idea is not working, you switch to the other one.
Presentation:
All the basis of critical thinking is necessary, but the presentation must be given special attention. Presentation is the outcome of your analysis and interpretation. Once your data is analyzed and interpreted, the next thing is to present your findings. It is a terrible thing to perform excellent analysis and interpretation only to be deficient in the presentation aspect. During the presentation of your analysis and presentation, you must capture the situation and expressly present encompassing solutions.
Evaluation:
The final basis of critical thinking is the evaluation stage, where you examine and evaluate your results. Determining the correct measure, accurate metrics that worked well, and things to note during the process are all involved in the evaluation stage. At this stage, you can identify where personal sentiment has come from it, and then you can remove it. The results must be seen with intellectual integrity, real-life applications, and problem-solving.
The human ability to solve problems through critical thinking will never disappear because as the days go by, new problems arise, and critical thinkers are needed to find solutions and create lasting ideas. Technology has advanced that we now have robots, and robots are automated. One of the best skills that cannot be automated is critical thinking, and you don’t have to spend to have this skill.
The following are the benefits of critical thinking?
It is needed as a leader to make solid decisions: As a leader, you are not expected to make wrong decisions or be pushed by the followers to make the wrong decisions. A leader is expected to lead by example, and one of the tools you will need to excel as a leader in Critical Thinking. Critical thinking appears to be precisely what is needed by leaders to lead correctly and by example. For the success of an investment or organization, precise decisions must be made for the betterment and the advancement of the company.
For Vision Clarity:
Critical thinking doesn’t only make the task easier. It makes the vision clearer. A critical thinker actively questions every idea rather than settling for the ready-made answer. By doing this, you can be sure of a plan’s result if all things are equal. For an investor to trust in his business plan and get back his money and profit, critical thinking is needed. People in business don’t just wake up in the morning and decide to invest in a business, and they would have engaged in critical thinking to examine the future of the business and the pro and cons.
For better decision making:
Critical thinking aims to have the best solution for the issue at hand. For a better decision-making ability, one needs to be a critical thinker. At first, it might look like the critical thinker is a fool and doesn’t know what he or she is doing, but in the end, when things fall in place, they will be celebrated and reckoned with.
WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO CRITICAL THINKING?
Ego:
Ego restricts a man from thinking. Instead of searching for ideas, ego makes a man feel like he knows all things. To be a critical thinker, you must be open to other people’s ideas, but ego prevents a man from doing that. A self-centered person believes his decisions are superior to others, and research has it that it is a difficult barrier to overcome because it a behavioral.
Time:
Some people find it hard to find time for themselves; they are busy in their heads even when they have nothing to do. Time can be a barrier for people who run multiple work shifts every day; all they do after work is to go and sleep. Most of them do not even have time for other things aside from work.
Hunger for answers:
This is very common among young people; they are in the haste of finding answers, they tend to show strength in the face of problems instead of displaying wisdom. When one is pressed and hungry for answers, one might accept any answer and the most likable and final answer.
Group thinking:
Group work doesn’t give room for independent thinking; it is not easy to think in group work critically. Drone mentality: People who have this mentality find it hard to pay attention to things, and someone like this cannot think critically.
Critical thinking is the ability to be on top of one’s thinking. It includes the power to consciously examine whether your elements of reasoning and those around you are functional. This is determined by weighing the logic against widely employed benchmarks. It also involves the structured examination of sources of data. Such brooding about one’s reasoning involves the power to spot the essential elements of reasoning.
They are the focus, question, knowledge, assumption, understanding, concepts, and consequences. Using standard intellectual requirements and norms, people retain some aspects of reasoning.
Businesses that want to remain competitive and successful will need to hire employees who can think critically. It isn’t enough to land a university degree holder. New business executives will need to be curious, analytical, and good problem-solvers. Strategic or strategic thinking is the most requested skill for employers when screening job applicants, as reported from business surveys.
Research has also described strategic thinking, Investigation, judgment call, organizational planning, and risk management as essential workplace must-have abilities. Employers are demanding that graduates have more than just textbook knowledge and believe that the power to think critically is vital to job performance and career excellence. It has also been revealed that critical thinking remains the most valuable characteristic that companies need to grow. The other essential needs are simple innovations as well as increased information technology usage.
Work settings are changing rapidly, forcing employees into new job roles. Employees cannot trust others to form critical decisions and can be forced to form them on their own and quickly. Making good decisions require top-notch first-hand experience on the job. Also, asking the right questions and making the correct assumptions are all encompassed in elements of reasoning. Unfortunately, very few workers have these skills.
A survey of Human Resource professionals (SHRM) shows that a complete 70% of workers with a high school diploma were deficient in critical thinking abilities. In other recent studies, 45% of school graduates made no notable improvement in developing critical thinking or other elements of reasoning. After four years, 36% showed no significant gains in critical thinking skills. When these students leave college and enter the workforce, they’re going to be unprepared to meet the work environment’s challenges. Managers have declared that candidates who have taken time to develop all their reasoning elements are highly valued.
Candidates with these invaluable abilities are going to be in demand and will be hotcakes. Critical thinking skills have become invaluable. Fast-paced work setting and skillful ability to adapt will be critical attributes of fully functional elements of reasoning. Human resource professionals and recruiters will be screening candidates for these characteristics during interviews. Building these critical thinking skill sets of the current workers will also become necessary and vital.
HOW TO IMPRESS THE HUMAN RESOURCE PERSONALS
The use of thought evaluations in initial hiring is an excellent approach for human resource professionals. People who perform well on these assessments show superior analytical abilities, reasoning, decision-making, and overall results. They also show the power to gauge the standard of data presented, are creative, have better job knowledge.
They mainly raise the hierarchy in such companies. Some assessments are reserved for managerial or professional candidates that evaluate hard skills. Research also shows that higher-level management positions require sound elements of reasoning. Therefore, finding things out quickly and processing information accurately should not be found wanting. Your elements of reasoning must be richly endowed.
Organizations that include both critical thinking and personality tests in hiring processes will have complete executives. Organizations that use either personality or critical thinking assessments alone may not be able to match up.
HOW TO ASSIST YOUR STAFF TO BECOME HIGHLY COGNITIVE IN THINKING
Helping employees become strategic thinkers or higher-order thinkers is often done by introducing questioning techniques. Better questioning helps them visualize and synthesize information more effectively. Through practice, this process can become automatic, and it will assist them in developing their reasoning elements fully. The majority of programs instruct people to be effective listeners, not good thinkers or questioners. Passive learning doesn’t necessarily develop cognitive management skills or changes in behavior.
Showing more interest in the course of learning will be simpler and can offer more long-term results. Information learned and processed through higher-order thinking is remembered longer than traditional memorization. Knowledge is simpler to transfer and apply when your workers’ elements of reasoning are developed and well used.
This results in better problem-solving ability. Questioning then becomes an integral part of the company’s daily process. Perfecting the interactive session begins with establishing what’s known and allows the trainer or mentor the power to develop new ideas and understandings.
Questioning techniques have been proven to foster the thinking ability of executives. Create relevant questions around the task to be done. Work on the methodology for your workplace. Inspire open discussion and foster engagement of the crucial elements of reasoning. Sincere in-depth probing usually allows your workers to organize and analyze issues more efficiently.
START ENGAGING YOUR TOP OFFICIALS
The only essential elements of a talented questioner are asking short and concise questions, rephrasing, and drawing different responses from the subordinates’ answers. The practice is additionally necessary to master the elements of reasoning and their usage. Allow your staff members to practice their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior changes on the job. These relevant questioning and activities that are relevant to their job specification will make them think.
Think of a scenario that builds on what they already know when contemplating cases to implement on your new employees. It is often as simple as reading a policy, giving a real-life example of a circumstance, remarking something on a spreadsheet, or face to face. Then, model a challenge or task showing the right thought processes for healthy elements of reasoning. Suggest a task that will be solved jointly or by talking about the scenario. Again, for investigative questions, use your query technique.
What would happen if? Inform me what just happened? What strategies worked well or didn’t work in all situations? What would you do next time? What can we assume? Maybe have a debate. Predict what is going to happen next. Finally, provide some feedback or create the chance for self-assessment. Utilize this feedback to create upon your next task, and always remember to reward creativity.
Workers won’t want to repeat exceptional values as dictated by their reasoning elements if they do not feel valued. Workers with highly efficient elements of reasoning and higher- thinking order will most likely perform excellently well. Such members of staff will be ready to go all the way to distinguish themselves at work. They’re going to rationalize or explain why an answer will work and may see different angles or sides to issues.
This will help you solve real-world problems in your company or business. Encourage your workers to believe the strategies that you introduce but never force them on them. If organizations encourage their workers with these abilities and utilize the art of questioning very well, their employees will display well-groomed reasoning elements at all times. Critical thinking will become invaluable for your organization’s future success.
There is a strategic advantage for businesses that attracts and engages creative thinkers. Employments these days favor workers with the ability to develop this talent in the workplace. Just like the workers will stand out, it will rub off on the organization too. Not too many workers are recruited with this kind of rare talent, but the few who have them will sure stand out in the workplace.
All reasoning is an effort to work something out, settle some questions, and unravel some problem.
Every reasoning is founded on assumptions.
Every reasoning is done from a particular standpoint,
All reasoning is based on reality, knowledge, and proof. All reasoning is articulated from many viewpoints and formed by them.
All reasoning includes assumptions that we conclude.
Each reasoning leads somewhere, with potential consequences.
CONCLUSION
Every individual is blessed with a brain capable of solving any problem whatsoever. It’s generally believed that we are only ready to use a tiny part of our brains in our entire life in all humans life. The more we engage in critical thinking, the more developed all the reasoning elements in our brain parts become developed and highly classified. Critical thinking isn’t naturally developed; instead, it is developed by conscious efforts to groom and nurture them.
Although, there are times when people can have a period of reflection once unplanned or unexpected changes prompt them. Thinking also becomes critical when individuals do not depend on perceptual filters to work out what’s accepted as true and proper. Your elements will be at work when you have a willingness to gauge your beliefs and alter them once they find compelling and convincing evidence.
Critical thinking is often most effectively taught by utilizing an in-depth explanation or time to practice what’s being learned. Direct application of these skills to issues and problems makes you master all your elements of thinking.
Most of your clients do not have any particular love for you; you are only valuable to the extent to which you can help them solve their problems. The new dynamics across the world entrepreneurs are built on fantastic thought leadership platforms. All your client’s problems and challenges can be skillfully solved while underpinning your sales on their visit and interaction with them. These platforms are meant to stand you out from other experts in your field of work.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PLATFORMS is about delivering new ideas and content to your target publics based on deep insights into the business issues and challenges they face. In the process, the value you provide must transcend just distributing products. Your opinions on events and issues should differentiate you from your competitors, establish you as the ‘go-to’ expert in that field, and position you as a trusted advisor – all with the intent of getting sales. Creating a website or social media page for such a purpose is termed a thought leadership platform.
CHOOSING THE BEST THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PLATFORM
Arriving at the proper thought leadership platform naturally is a challenging task. A good starting point is to apply some rigor to your search process. Try the following tips for THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PLATFORMS.
Scan the media and social media sites for issues affecting your brand or sector.
Search for quality content bordering around the products and services that you offer. You need to be at the forefront of all the current events in your field and be proactive in addressing them appropriately on your thought leadership platform. This will make you top of the go-to experts in your field. This will invariably increase your market acceptability.
Make sure you Track your competitors’ progress and methods to ensure the kind of thought leadership platform you want to run are not already in use by a competitor. If you fail to carry out this crucial step, you may play second fiddle to your competitors. The critical turning point in running a successful thought leadership platform is that they inspire their visitors to think outside the box. The platform encourages all visitors to apply conventional means to inspire new interest in their products and services.
Determine The True Worth of your Organization
Analyze and understand your company’s actual worth, i.e., its total values, to define the best thought leadership platform that best suits your business. It’s possible you have been wining in some areas of your company, and it will only be natural that you stick to your tactics. Where you need to apply the skills and techniques of your thought leadership platform are the failing areas. You should know the issues and seek to find a lasting solution to them.
Study Your clients’ Challenges and What Excites them
Most critically, Research your clients’/customers’ needs regarding their issues, challenges they face over the next two to three years to ensure that your thought leadership platform aligns with these. When your clients are aware that they can get solutions to all their challenges, they will naturally want to be associated with you and follow all your instructions to the letter, including your product recommendations.
Note the trend of events in your field and be ahead all the time
Trend spot to identify the forces that could shape your audience’s lives now and in the future, which will offer a greater focus for all the materials you post on your leadership platform. The crucial factors that will decide your clients’ satisfaction must be identified and taken as your key strategic communication point with them. The most effective thought leadership platforms are never lacking the right key focus points. They strive to help their clients to get a solution to virtually all their challenges in their field of choice.
Identify a champion to lead your campaign – you need a spokesperson.
You should hire very competent and hardworking thought leaders who will constantly hold your clients spellbound with quality contents and materials. This will add value to your existing clients as well as your potential clients. Your thought leadership platform should work like a magnet and get people hooked. This might require you to spend some cash to get this done if you can’t handle it yourself. Nothing excellent comes cheap, especially the driver of your sales.
Ensure you examine your properties, i.e., do you have any existing intellectual property that could be turned into your campaign materials with a little more work. This will help you to cut costs a bit. If not, your team should manage tour thought leadership platforms professionally.
All these above mentioned tips will help you in THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PLATFORMS.
Companies with strong cultures tend to do well. Leadership is treated the same way- for it to truly succeed, it should become part of an organization’s culture. For many years some of the leading management consultancies have had an intense focus on thought leadership.
They’re delicious in their thought leadership platforms, and it has been the critical point of their client engagement strategy. In many cases, they push their sales from there, and it has become part of their culture, including every member of the organization. These companies have illustrated that companies must maintain a very viable thought leadership platform for thought leadership to thrive.
In today’s cluttered information environment, it’s not enough to produce content and provide average products and services. To stand out and differentiate yourself requires that you be a thought leader in your field and maintain an excellent leadership platform.
This means vision, innovation, credibility, a depth of knowledge, at times going against popular opinion, is the outlet that people – particularly those within your industry – look to for answers and direction. This implies knowing and forecasting patterns and knowing how to capitalize on them. It means recognizing patterns and connecting dots that others don’t see. Differentiation is usually viewed horizontally as simply doing things differently from your competitors.
But thought leadership is vertical, meaning you rise above peers and competitors. Normal differentiation keeps you trapped in the commodity world, meaning you’ll constantly compete on price. Thought leadership lets you overcome the pit of commodities; Buyers like more than what you are selling; they want your experience and expertise to be in-depth. And because they believe in your advice, you’re going to sell more of your products.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PLATFORMS
Thought leader platforms must offer some benefit to their readers or visitors. They are either willing to support their audience with decision-making or problem identification or facilitate their ability to invent the next big thing. All of us have a specific amount of expertise and industry experience. Still, it is the industry’s powerbrokers that eventually close more deals and get investors and consumers more effectively than everyone else to reach for their wallets.
As a result, thought leadership platforms can build or break a brand, and they help drive customer engagement and help create the next generation of consumers. Thought leadership platforms also help drive innovation and progress by publishing carefully crafted and managed columns and other social media posts. Such interaction points are where thought leaders talk about new products, features, services, technological advancements, or business ways.
This allows them to harness a whole new spectrum of customer feedback, comments, and experiences. This way, they can formulate new or improve production processes or impact the general way business is conducted in other meaningful ways. It also leads to improvements and advancements in the industry as a whole.
DO NOT ABANDON YOUR COMMODITY.
We encounter this problem constantly – people don’t want to enter the commodity trap, so their business model shifts to information. This is a mistake; your commodity is your primary economic engine. On your thought leadership platform, invest more in speaking and consulting gigs, but use them to drive business to your commodity.
Take your fees as icing on the cake, but never confuse them with your primary economic engine. For example, mortgage broker Kenton Brown offers training every Saturday on his leadership platform, but he understands that mortgages are his economic engine. Very few people can have thought of leadership as their primary economic engine and flaunt a platform for such. It’s a gamble, and it takes massive amounts of time and effort. It’s largely dependent on personality and charisma.
As an acknowledged thought leader, you can charge more, and you’re all but guaranteed to have a steady stream of clients. Escaping the commodity trap doesn’t mean stopping selling commodities; it means building an effective thought leadership platform to sell your commodity.
Every organization and the business person must take a course or seminars/workshops on how you launch and run a successful thought leadership platform in the modern age. Your clients will constantly look up to you for professional assistance. The more you try to help them overcome their challenges, the more they become attached to you.
It will be natural they recommend you to their family and friends when they face a similar situation in the future. With the digital marketing boom and numerous online resources, consumers can now obtain information on anything almost instantaneously. Your thought leadership platform must be such that it will be catered to all your clients’ fundamental needs.
Why do we need to Embrace Your Fears? We all have specific fears in life. For most of us, fear is not a concept that we deal with every day, though. Fear is not a bad thing; it is, however, occasionally a limiting factor in our lives. Yet what we fear is not always real. Many studies have shown that most people share many of the same fears. Even though they are not real, we still fear situations and environments that might hold us back from living our actual life.
Natural Fears
Understanding what fear is, is the first step to embracing your fears. Over the years, psychological studies have shown that human beings have only two natural fears. Yes, only two! They are loud noises and falling. Have you ever had that dream where you are falling and wake up just before you hit bottom? Sure, you have. For those who have witnessed the miracle of childbirth, you might have noticed the doctor checking the baby’s reflexes by clapping their hands next to the baby. They also do a little drop test to test the falling reflexes.
When I saw this happening to my newborn son, I was a little upset with the doctor. That was until he explained to me that these are the natural reflexes or fears that all humans have. Reacting to noises and the falling sensation is how they check that your little one is fully aware of their surroundings.
So, the question then begs, where do all the other fears that we have come from? It is simple. As we grow up, we experience life in our unique way, and we develop a long list of fears. Some of them are healthy, but for the most part, they are limiting. These limiting fears are what holds us back from doing what we want to do in life. These are the fears that you must face and conquer. Embrace your fears and understand which are serving you and which are not.
So, you want to embrace your fears. Well, the good news is that there are 1000’s books and websites that will give you guidelines on how to do that. What I want to do today is give you just a little taste of what it would be like to embrace your fears, even the biggest ones. I am going to focus on fears that many people have but are totally unrealistic and exceptionally limiting.
According to a recent study, these are the top ten fears that hold people back in life:
Fear of Rejection
Fear of Uncertainty
Fear of Something Bad Happening
Fear of Getting Hurt
Fear of Being Judged
Fear of Inadequacy
Fear of Loss of Freedom
Fear of Change
Fear of Loneliness
Fear of Failure
If you look at the list of fears, how many of these are currently in your life? For many of our more “overachieving readers,” you might tick a lot of the above. But these are the fears that so many of us struggle with every day in some way or another. However, if you take a step back and look at these fears, you might start to notice something very revealing.
None of these fears are based on reality: a simple example, the fear of change. Our lives have been going through changes since the day we were born. We grow up, have friends, get more friends, friends move away, new school, new relationships, and so on and so on. Why should we be afraid of change if we go through it almost every day of our lives? The best place to start to embrace your fear to start with the fears of what we already have in life, change, success, failure, and rejection.
FACT – just about all our fears in life are based on some extreme worst-case scenario created in our minds. These fears are never realized or could ever really happen, but they have control over our lives. It only when you embrace your fears that you realize the unrealistic nature of your fears.
How to Beat your Fears
To embrace your fears might seem like a daunting task. In reality, it is not. Whether you use self-help books or personal development seminars, the process is straightforward.
We have many little fears, all of which are attached to a past event that we did not like at all. But as we have seen, they are often not based on reality, just in our imagination. So, make a list of your own. It doesn’t matter how many you have. Just put them on paper so you can start scratching them off one by one. Embrace your fears on paper first.
Start at the Bottom
Most likely, you have listed them in order of priority, which means that your worst fear is right on top of the list. Great, because beating your fears is just like anything else in life. It would help if you got used to the process before you get proficient at it. So, embrace your fears, starting with the smallest fear first, starting at the bottom, and practicing embracing this fear till you conquer it.
Take it Easy at First.
If you like, you can get a therapist or counselor to help you out with the process, but the steps are easy. Create a controlled environment where you can face the fear without too much anxiety. This is important for two reasons. Firstly, you will get a clearer understanding of why you have this fear as you go through the process. Secondly, you need to get used to the process of facing your fears so that you can conquer them. Embrace your fears in the least anxious environment first, then take your strength into the world.
Be Real with Yourself
You are not going to get it right the first time. Not only are you facing your fears, but you are also trying a new process. So little mistakes will happen. This is OK. It is the best way to do it. If you sail through the process, you are not fully experiencing the fear and will have to do it again soon. Don’t skimp when you embrace your fears; you only must defeat them once correctly to live a better life.
Take Action
To embrace your fears will not always be easy. As you move up the list, you will have ever-increasing scenarios that you have to conquer. For example, if you fear public speaking, try to increase the stakes slowly and get some help from others. If you start by speaking in front of your family, then move to more challenging audiences, you might want to speak to a public speaker on some tips. Public speaking is a widespread fear, and most speakers have had to deal with it at some time in their lives. They will have great advice for you. Please do this for all your fears, find someone who already has beaten your fear, and find out how they did it.
Keep on Keeping On
Regardless of what fear you have, they limit you in some way. For the context of “Embrace your Fears,” we understand that these fears are holding you back from something that you might want to do or achieve. To embrace your fears, you need to be just a little persistent and keep on doing the work. If you follow the process and start small, you will quickly build up the confidence you need to carry on the process and conquer even the biggest of your fears.
You are not Your Fears.
The most important thing to remember is that you are not your fears. They are just temporary obstacles that you conquer when you embrace your fears. You are more than just a few simple little fears. You are a human being; you have a voice that needs to be heard in the world. Regardless of your profession, skillset, or ambitions, you can achieve them if you take conscious steps towards your goals.
One of the best ways to embrace your fears and integrate them until they are part of your being is by surrounding yourself with positive people that share your outlook on life. Life is for living, and you need to be at your best to get the best out of it. So, joining a group of like-minded people will help you embrace your fears and achieve your dreams.
Whether you want to change your local community or affect change on a global scale, conquering your fears is the first step. This simple guide will give you the first building blocks to take the steps that will help you embrace your fears, the fears that have been holding you back. Also, the encouragement of a community focused on creating lasting healthy changes in the world will be the perfect stimulus to getting you to where you want to be.
So, get up, embrace your fears with open arms and be all you can and want to be. One of the cardinal rules is that your fears can never change the person you are unless you let them. As you go through the process, you will see that you are not removing the fears from your life but making them part of your being. Once you integrate your fears, you will experience more inner power than ever before!
This might sound like a weird fear to have, considering that if you are fear of lies, you might as well not lie. But in life, you can never really tell if someone is lying to you, nor can you avoid the occasional “white lie” slipping from your mouth. There are very few people that can testify to never telling even the smallest lie in their life.
The thing about lying is that we all step into that trap as kids, and we often get caught out by our parents, yet we never really learn the lesson. Have you ever been brutally honest with your friends and family? It does not always work out so well. So why are we afraid of lying if being honest is not that easy either?
The Origin of Lies
Or rather, why do people lie? The reasoning behind why we lie is not so difficult to understand. We have all experienced the lies told by political figures or even in the workplace. For many of us, the first experience of lies goes back to our childhood days. Everybody has had a moment when you have done something, and you told a little fib to cover it up, like coming home after your curfew or even why you did not do your homework. We develop a fear of lying because we don’t like it or we don’t know how to get out of the lies.
The little lies we often overlook because of the context in which they occur, but there is a valid reason for them at the time. In the examples given, we have genuine reasons we might have fibbed, but we also experienced times when the lies told did not have an apparent reason behind them. These are lies that were told just because we did not remember what happened or because we felt pressured to have an answer. Hence, we build up a fear of lies.
Nobody enjoys being lied to, and very few people get any pleasure from lying. So, the question remains – why do people have a fear of lies? The source of lies is as varied as the lies themselves.
For all the reasons we might have for telling lies, there is one reason why all these other reasons are secondary. Control. People tell lies to enact a certain level of control over a situation where they feel out of control. Whether it be control of their actions or in control of others’ actions, lies are about control. It’s very selfish reasoning. Yet we often rationalize it by saying we did it to protect others from the truth.
Truth does harm, not can it be dangerous. Truth is real. Lies are not. The fear of lying, however, is. To explain this, I will use a handy real-world example. Politics is all about getting the public to vote for you; first, you need their support to stay in power. So, politicians often are caught in their lies. It seems that they do not have a fear of lying almost. There are even agencies that now fact-check our politicians to keep them honest. Gone are the days of Honest Abe.
So, when you listen to politicians now, you are already thinking in the back of your mind whether or not you should believe what they are saying. We all understand that this is a horrible situation to be in, but we accept it. Because that’s just the way, it is. We don’t want to be lied to, but we don’t take action to try to eliminate them from our lives. So we look past our fear of lying.
This is also true in most relationship contexts; we are so scared of being lied to by our partners who always check up on them and the things they say. This behavior is damning to ourselves and the relationship. Because we will not outright question the person because we don’t want to the right or wrong. Yes, you read correctly. You don’t want to be right about the lies because that would be seen as a failure on your behalf. Again, we look past our fear of lying to our loved ones.
You also don’t want to be wrong because you would have shown that you don’t trust your partner who might lead to a breakdown in your relationship. Trust is the victim of lies. The fear of lying is the perpetrator. Without Trust, we, as human beings, often don’t have any quality of life. And this is how we start acting weirdly around our partners, which causes you both pains, which is all because you fear lying and lies.
Of course, when the story comes out that you have questions, you will possibly blow the situation out of proportion to make your actions seem understandable. And there we are right back to tell little lies to cover things up that might present us in a bad light! Yet, we still have a fear of lies.
The reasons why we tell lies are mainly based on keeping up with our inner picture of ourselves. If we don’t want to be seen as this or that, we will quite possibly tell little “acceptable” lies to maintain our self-image. And the same is true for other people. They will tell little fibs to keep you happy if they think the truth will cause you unhappiness.
Why are we always fighting for the truth, yet we fear lying in the same regard? To be clear, we fight for the perception of truth. To have a feeling of truth is what most of us end up with at the end of the day.
What is Truth?
Truth is what we are all after. Then how do we always end up with a watered-down version of the truth? The problem is a systemic one; we have been taught to accept what sounds like the truth. Yet never question it as it supposedly comes from a trusted source. Suppose you are looking for truth in your life in all things you need to start with yourself. Conquer the fear of lies internally. Songs have been written about it; start with the Man in The Mirror!
We are so scared of having lain in our lives from external sources that we never take the time to evaluate our own “truth-telling.” This is the main reason why we have a fear of lying. We have done it, and we know the type of damage it can do, so we don’t want that for ourselves. But we very possibly might be ok with others getting damaged by lies, whether our own or someone else’s.
If you have a fear of lying or being lied to, then the process starts with you. It would help if you analyzed where you might have lies in your life and put an end to it. That is the only way that you can congruently put a stop to lies in your life. They might be small or big, but they are justified to you by your reasoning.
You will have compelling reasoning for the lies you tell, no matter how small they might be. For the record, the reasoning is consequential only to you. The minute you put the reason for your lies up for analysis by others, they will fall flat on their lying faces.
Common reasons for fear of lies are things like avoiding punishment or concealing reward and benefit. Ever told a police officer that you did not have a drink before you drove home? Or maybe you said your phone was on silent when you missed a call? The lies in our lives are often tiny and insignificant but can often lead to severe pain or discomfort when caught out. Yet we often look past our fear of lying.
In truth, there is nothing that we can do about other people’s lies. We can rarely spot the lie in the act. And we only cause ourselves pain and suffering when we go searching for them. But that does not mean that we should not be insistent on having truth in our lives. But truth starts with you and not with other people, not your spouse and not your leaders. It starts with you.
You need to understand your fear of lies first. If you want the truth, then you must be willing to do the work to find it and nurture it. Or you would be forever in a place of yearning for truth while holding on to lies, not to mention living with your fear of lying every day.
Black Sheep Community and fear of lies
The Black Sheep Community could very well be the place where your journey into truth begins. In our community, we strive to reveal the truth behind whatever we are working on. Our fear of lying or lies is often put under the spotlight to conquer it. Whether it be the climate or politics or just understanding the latest trends on social media.
So, if you want to share your truth with people that will respect and honor that truth with their truth, join the Black Sheep Community. Our commitment to truth and openness will surprise you and maybe teach you a couple of things you did not know!
