Secrets of World-Class Athletes and Entrepreneurs

Dr. North’s Creed …
Be present.
Tell the truth.
Play to win.
Don’t be attached to the outcome.

The last post focused on being present. This post focuses on the second part of my creed: Tell the truth.

As a consultant, coach and husband being truthful sometimes requires finesse (especially as a husband)! Take my experience with a CEO/founder whom I’ll call Bob. Bob was an old-school leader who hired my company to change his company’s management system from command-and-control to team-based. After three years of intense work, the new system was mostly a success and the company was growing, but Bob struggled with the new system and flunked a leadership assessment.

Bob’s company was our best client, and when I had to give him feedback on his assessment, I was afraid he’d fire us. I spent three weeks stressing over how to tell him he flunked. Here’s what happened:

After our pleasantries, I said, “Bob, please don’t look at the results of your assessment; you didn’t score well and I’d like to give you my opinion. In psychological terms, you’re

the most masculine leader I’ve ever worked with. You’re goal-oriented and you don’t let anything get in your way; it’s a big part of your success.” Bob sat up a little taller in his chair. I continued, “The management system we’ve implemented is very feminine. It’s cooperative and decisions are made by consensus. And there isn’t a feminine cell in your body.” His chest now noticeably expanded and he smiled. After that, I said pretty much anything I wanted and he listened.

At the end of our discussion, he walked me to his office door and gave me a big hug. (OK, just kidding about the hug.) He said, “TC, thank you. You’re doing a great job here.” Bob’s company continued to be one of my best clients until he retired. By getting the truth out with Bob, and then the whole management team, we modified the management system so it worked for everyone.

This week, consider using finesse to share a tough truth with someone important to you.

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.  You can also take a look at my new website at TCNorth.com.

Dr. North’s Creed …
Be present.
Tell the truth.
Play to win.
Don’t be attached to the outcome.

I adopted this magnificent creed early in my career. It’s multidimensional when fully implemented, and it’s easy to understand (yet takes practice to master). Over the next several posts, we’ll examine each part of the creed.

Here’s a brief description of the four parts:
1. Be present. Show up with a clean slate — your only agenda is to serve the person(s) you are with (selling and leadership) or focus on competing at your highest level in sports.
2. Tell the truth. Always be truthful and find ways to deliver the tough truths in a way they can be heard. Tell the truth to others and yourself. We delude ourselves much of the time. Tell the truth to yourself – deal with the reality of every aspect of your situation.
3. Play to win. In everything that’s important to you, play to win — and don’t be afraid to lose. If you are afraid to lose, you play in fear. You can’t play your best when playing in fear.
4. Don’t be attached to the outcome. If you’re too attached, you may focus on how not to lose, or suffer needlessly when you do lose. More importantly, when you focus on the outcome, you are living in the future, get over that, come back to the present, this is where you are competing!

Be present. In leadership and sales, your only agenda is being with and serving the person(s) you are with. You aren’t in the past or future, just in the present. Ask great questions, listen beyond the words you hear and suspend your thinking while listening, so you tune in to and sense the nuances of the conversation that others miss. (When salespeople learn this, sales flow.)

Here’s a success story: Disney asked Lacy, the CEO of a very small — yet successful — Colorado business, to give a proposal for a significant piece of work. When she arrived at Disney, she was able to just be present. Lacy said, “I was so prepared by the time I got there, I wasn’t as nervous as I expected, even though we were meeting with top brass and I’d never presented to such a powerful group of executives. About 20 minutes into the meeting, I was so engaged in listening to what they wanted and sharing what we could do for them that I’d taken my shoes off and was sitting on my feet.” The meeting went well and had a great outcome. Lacy has a wonderful ability to be present, listen (except when she noticed her feet) and engage with others.

Leave me your thoughts and comments below and I look forward to the conversation.

Dr. TC North

“Definiteness of decision always requires courage, sometimes very great courage.”
“Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill

Do you make great decisions under pressure? Great football quarterbacks, such as Tom Brady, quickly read a defense and decide which receiver to throw to. Great salespeople, such as Sara Quick, land the largest new accounts by being creative — like selling to businesses their companies usually don’t serve. Great leaders, such as Harry Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, make decisions that affect the lives of innumerable people, such as dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II.

Napoleon Hill studied over 25,000 people who had experienced failure and concluded that lack of decision-making was one of the top causes of failure. To make great decisions, consider Harry Truman’s three-step decision-making process:
1. The logical decision. Gather the best information from people who know the most about the subject. Make a pro and con list and determine your logical decision.
2. The emotional decision. Search your heart for your emotional decision. Truman’s emotional decision was to not drop the bomb; he hated the idea.
3. The intuitive decision. Take time away to quiet your thoughts and emotions. Then pay attention to your intuition. You may find your intuitive message in the pit of your stomach, like Harry Truman did, or it could be a quiet sense of knowing. Intuitive messages are different for everyone.

It takes courage to make the tough decisions;
a good decision-making process will give you
more confidence in your decisions.

Please leave me your comments and thoughts.  If you would like to hear more from me, go to http://TCNorth.com.

Dr. TC North

“She looks like she is wrestling an alligator,” said the mother of an extraordinarily talented 16-year-old swimmer during a swim meet. During practice, this incredible athlete was swimming times that would qualify her for senior national competitions (the level that the Olympic team is chosen from. But in competition, she couldn’t even swim a junior national qualifying time, a much slower time. So why was she faster in practice than in competition? Because in practice, she relaxed and swam efficiently. But in competition, she tried too hard, which made her very tense and inefficient — like she was wrestling an alligator.

One former Olympic X-C ski coach always picked a race for his skiers and told them, “Only ski at 90% of race speed.” In these races, his skiers usually had their best times because they stayed relaxed and in the flow state — the state of mind where people are at their best, no matter what they’re doing.

I’ve seen multitudes of athletes, leaders and sales professionals try too hard, resulting in failure. Training, practicing and other parts of your preparation will get you ready. Then, when it’s time for you to perform (be at your best), breathe deeply, relax, be present and trust your preparation. This gives you your best chance to be in the flow state, thus being your best.

“Compete at 90%, not 110%.”
Dan O’Brien, Olympic decathlon gold medal winner

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below and feel free to look through my new website at www.TCNorth.com.

Everyone wants more confidence,
so why do we block its development?

Strengthening and weakening confidence is very complex, yet there’s one simple way to build it: openly accept compliments.

Hardly anyone fully takes in compliments. I catch myself blocking compliments often, and I teach this stuff. Blocking compliments runs deep in our culture and starts at a really young age.

For example, one day I was driving my 5-year-old daughter Chelsea home from kindergarten and I wanted to give her a compliment. I had been teaching her for some time to receive them when they were given, because I could see that compliments were just bouncing off her little body like super balls off concrete.

So I said, “Chelsea, I’m going to give you a compliment.” When I did, she raised her hand to her heart, closed her thumb and forefingers together and mimicked unzipping a zipper. When I asked what she was doing, and she said, “Dada, I am opening my heart.” I had a rush of emotion and my eyes welled with tears.

After I gave her the compliment, she raised her hand to her heart again and made the zipping motion in the opposite direction. When I asked again what she was doing, she said, “Dada, I am zipping my heart back up.” This time, the emotional rush overcame me and tears rolled down my cheeks. At only 5 years old she had already learned to close up and protect herself!

I bet you’ve been through a lot of emotional experiences in your life and you are pretty good at protecting your heart. Next time you receive a compliment, ask yourself, Do I want to block another compliment, or do I want to build my confidence. If you want to build your confidence, unzip your heart and fully take it in?

Compliments build your courage, confidence, self-esteem
and self-image … if you let them in.

Please leave your thoughts and comments and I look forward to the conversation.

Dr. TC North