Category Archives: Decisions

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Fear, Failure and Anxiety

By my desk I have a card from a coaching friend that says, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”    It is fairly standard coaching question.  It is also a good question. I think about it from time to time and occasionally am motivated to step out and do something even though failure could be an option.

This week I am doing something I’ve never done before.  The problem is I don’t know if I will fail or not.   I think a real growth question is: “What are you doing that might result in failure?”   That takes it into the real world.  There are lots of things I’d do if I knew I could not fail.   In fact, the guarantee of success makes it pretty easy.

Doing something with an unknown outcome is a challenge. The best part is in a few days I’ll be on the other side of it.  Fear, failure and anxiety will all be replaced with the inevitable growth that comes from doing something new, stretching myself and learning from the after action review.

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A Good Overview from Catalyst Foundation

Social Media is conversation many people are engaged in and there is no shortage of good and bad examples of how to do it well.  Chris Wignall provides some good insight in this post.  What is one thing you could do to make your presence stronger?  Is it consistency? Is it strategy?  Is it simply getting started?

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Honesty – no matter how humiliating – is still the best policy.

Honesty – no matter how humiliating – is still the best policy.

A quote I read today said, “Warning: 100% honesty can make you feel 100% dysfunctional.”  Isn’t’ that the truth? And isn’t that why we find honesty so difficult.  It is humbling or should I say humiliating when we mess up and people find out we are not perfect.

A lot has been said in the past months about Tiger Woods and the way his people have handled his domestic melt down. I’m sure that in some cases saying nothing has been an effective strategy for handling the media.  And dealing with a crisis that is going to play out on the global stage is certainly full of nuances that most of us don’t encounter in our personal and professional lives.  Still, we all have those situations where the truth about the situation is rather nasty and we feel vulnerable about being found out. How do we handle it?

I believe honesty no matter what is still the best policy. A focused conversation where you  admit you made a mistake, explain how you are trying to handle it and as I’ve said before, apologize if necessary.  Don’t try and candy coat it.  Keep away from spin if possible.  In this world of twitter and facebook status updates someone is always ready to tell it for you.  The safest thing is to tell the truth.

But Your Truth Does.

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Emotion or Fact

In preparation for a small presentation next week I am looking through a book on communication that I fine very helpful.  You’ve Got To Be Believed to Be Heard has been a valuable resource for me as a speaker and trainer.

Recently it has helped me navigate a challenge in life as well.  Becker writes about communication as selling.  He makes a point that we don’t like to hear: People buy on emotion and justify with fact.  We like to think that we make rational decisions and don’t let our feelings influence us.

If we can accept that we buy based on emotion we might find ourselves less defensive about decisions we’ve made.  Whether we make them based on emotion or facts we still have to live with the consequences.  Just don’t insult me by insisting you made a completely rational, fact based decision.

Our conversations can be focused on resolution and moving forward when we all admit our emotions are in play.  Ultimately our decisions are based on what we want to do.