Month: July 2020

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Be Kind by MAGIC – Giving to Yourself

Being Kind is your business super-power.

How do you Be Kind in Business? By applying the MAGIC formula:

Moving
Attuning
Giving
Inspiring
Connecting

It applies to:

Yourself
Your clients
Your team
Your prospects 

Giving to Yourself

This whole idea of giving to yourself might seem selfish or frivolous, an unnecessary luxury.

However, business people need to give to themselves so that they remain effective.

We need to give ourselves:

– the necessary resources,
– time for recharging, and
– recreation and inspiration.

Eat, Sleep, Break

To flourish, we have to give ourselves permission to sleep enough. We require the right nutrition. We need to give ourselves adequate breaks.

Leadership and sales are taxing occupations. We need time for thinking and reflecting on our work.

If you are a creative, you need time to brainstorm, to dream, to come up with new ideas.

I was once told that you can always spot the Chief Executive. They are the ones with their feet up on the desk. Not resting, thinking.

Modern life takes its toll. To be effective, we need to be healthy, both mentally and physically.

Come Apart…

I love the saying “Come apart before you come apart”. 

Do you take enough days off? Do you take proper holidays? We need to be intentional about time off in the always-on age. Give yourself permission to be switched off sometimes.

I once heard the now Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, talk about the “radical unavailability” of Jesus. Jesus, at the height of his ministry, used to take himself off and become unavailable for days at a time. He would recharge, reflect, and be all the more effective when he got back.

Soul Food

You need time to feed your soul. Time to inspire yourself, to relax, to feel good. Time to build your self up.

What hobbies are you engaged in? Hobbies that are not necessarily related to your work, but enable you to nurture another side of yourself.

Do you get to the theatre, watch films or good TV that lifts your spirits? Do you regularly escape into a good book?

A couple of decades ago, I read “The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron. One of the things that stuck with me from that book was the concept of an “artist’s date”, taking yourself off regularly for a treat. It might be going to a museum, a walk in nature, or cinema by yourself in the afternoon. One of my favourites is taking myself off to a posh hotel and having afternoon tea. Maybe you’d prefer a spa day? You get the idea.

If we’re giving all the time, we need time to recharge, to build our energy back, to bolster our self-worth.

Gold

The Golden Rule is, “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

If you’re not giving to yourself, then you won’t be in a position to give to your team, your prospects or your clients.

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Download my free eBook “Be Kind to Yourself” and learn how to:

  • Adapt to new ways of working
  • Harness the power of habits
  • Optimise the use of space in your home
  • Use clothes to boost productivity
  • Focus on what matters
  • Plan for the future amidst uncertainty
Be Kind to Yourself – Free eBook
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Be Kind by MAGIC – Attuning to Yourself

Being Kind is your business super-power.

How do you Be Kind in Business? By applying the MAGIC formula:

Moving
Attuning
Giving
Inspiring
Connecting

It applies to:

  • Yourself
  • Your clients
  • Your team
  • Your prospects 

Getting to Know Yourself

We can be more effective and productive if we learn to attune to ourselves.

Get to know ourselves, work out how we tick, and then work according to our natural rhythm and natural strengths.

In what areas can we do this?

  • Our energy patterns throughout the day,
  • sleep rhythms,
  • productivity triggers,
  • work patterns, and
  • personality type.

Energy Levels

I know that my most creative time is first thing in the morning. Following my dog walk, my mind is on fire. That is when I can produce my original material.

Knowing this, I avoid scheduling meetings before 11am. Pre-11am is my time to create stuff.

After lunch, I have an energy slump. I will generally have a power nap and then do routine answering of emails and other admin that doesn’t require vast amounts of brainpower. 

Later in the afternoon, I have a slight energy revival. This is time for fun, creative tasks that don’t require a lot of original thought – things like video and audio editing and non-taxing phone calls.

Obviously, the above only works if I have control of my day – sometimes others will dictate the timetable.

Sleepy Time

I have realised that I don’t work well at night. I like to finish work by 6pm, do nothing else in the evenings and to be in bed shortly after 10pm.  

I’m an early morning person. Other people are night owls.

We are all different. Work out your natural sleep rhythm and design your life and your work to maximise your effectiveness.

Trigger Happy

What do I mean by “productivity triggers”?

I have discovered that I am triggered to be more productive for different tasks by different locations. I like writing in the library. I love reading books in coffee shops. I like doing admin in my office.

I also find that changing my clothing puts me in a different mindset for different tasks, even when working from home.

Underlying all this is my discovery about myself that I am stimulated by variety.

What triggers your productivity? Can you engineer those things into your work timetable?

Pattern Matching

I like to do things little and often. For example, I’m usually reading five books at once, all different genres. I have set locations for each and set times in the day when I read them. I only read them for five or 10 minutes each.

I realise this might seem a bit strange. Other people want to concentrate on one book and read it from start to finish before they start the next one, but that doesn’t really work for me.

What suits you?

Similarly, I like to break work tasks down into short discrete steps and then spread them out over several days. I can then have a variety of work in one day, switching between projects each hour or so. 

What work rhythms, routines and habits, will help you to maximise your productivity?

In Touch with Type

What is your personality type? You may have come across Myers Briggs, the enneagram and DiSC These tools can help you to identify the most effective way to navigate through life and work, how you work both by yourself and with other people.

Are you an initiator or sustainer?

We all know people who are good at starting things but then get bored. Likewise, we all know people who don’t really like starting things but are great at keeping something going. Which one are you? 

How are you at delegation? This is a learning curve for me. I find it hard to delegate things where I have a small degree of competence, but I’m not an expert. Invariably, I have to ask myself, “What can only I do, and what can I pass on to someone else who can do it better and faster than me?”

Attune Time

Take time to find out how you tick, and then work accordingly. It’s a surefire way to increase your effectiveness and productivity,

Be kind to yourself: attune to yourself.

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You may find my free eBook helpful. 18 pages and easy to read: “Be Kind to Yourself: Six Magic Insights to Transform Home-Based Working.”Get your copy here: https://www.work-life-magic.com/be-kind-to-yourself-free-ebook/
Please pass this on to anyone you know that might find it helpful.

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Be Kind By MAGIC – Moving Yourself

Being Kind is your business super-power.

How do you Be Kind in Business? By applying the MAGIC formula:

Moving
Attuning
Giving
Inspiring
Connecting

It applies to:

Yourself
Your clients
Your team
Your prospects 

Today we look at the power  of MOVING yourself.

Live and Kicking

When I watch a live performance, it moves me. I get set free from day-to-day preoccupations and taken somewhere else. Maybe you are the same?

When I am performing, and I see my performance producing a similar experience in others, it feels great. I feel like I’m in my groove.

Live performance makes me emotional because I know its power.

Our feelings are enormous motivators. Most of what we do is motivated by emotion. Sometimes we like to think we’re mainly rational, but actually, our feelings are way more powerful.

It is important to remember this.

Jaded and Faded

You come across some close-up magicians who are jaded. They’ve been doing the same thing for too long, they’ve lost the joy and the spark. You can spot it a mile off. It contrasts so hugely with those who are loving every minute of it and bringing joy to those they entertain.

They’re just not feeling it anymore.

If you feel like you are lacking energy or motivation, find a way to reconnect with the feelings that got you going in the first place.

What started you off?

What is the bigger picture?

Paper Tigers

On the flip side, it may be that you had a feeling that stopped you doing something: nervousness, apprehension, fear of failure. Can you examine it, work out where it came from, test its validity? Once these negative feelings are recognised, many of them go away. Others can be worked through and conquered.

Connecting with our feelings is essential if we want to make progress, grow and continue.

Environmental Friendliness

How do you do this? How can you reconnect with your feelings, so that you’re always motivated and energised?

Think about your working and living environment. Surrounding yourself with stimulating or comforting pictures on your walls and objects on your desk can help. Watching films and theatre, going to particular places may well excite emotions that will motivate and inspire you.

Day-to-day and in the moment, music can also be a great energiser. I like to listen to AC/DC, Guns N’Roses or Led Zeppelin just before a big meeting, just to get my energy up and my mind into a faster rhythm. I’m then more energised and alert.

Similarly, exercise, nature and pets can help to lift my mood. Sometimes a change is as good as a rest: do something creative, go for a walk, phone a friend. Change your mood state, be moved, connect with the emotion that is driving you.

Feel the magic, because feeling is magic.

—

You may find my free eBook helpful.
18 pages and easy to read: “Be Kind to Yourself: Six Magic Insights to Transform Home-Based Working”
Get your copy here: https://www.work-life-magic.com/be-kind-to-yourself-free-ebook/
Please pass this on to anyone you know that might find it helpful.

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Be Kind by MAGIC – Introduction

Being kind is a superpower in business. 

What do I mean by this?

In this context, kindness is not an airy-fairy concept. It is intensely practical. I am not talking about random acts of kindness here, although they are lovely and to be commended. This is about something different.

Kindness can be intentional, and kindness can be planned. I’m talking about your mindset, of how you set priorities and how that affects your present and future actions.

Be kind to yourself and then be kind to others.

A Kind Magic

It is rather like being a magician.

You have to resource yourself before you perform for an audience; be kind to yourself so that you can be kind to them. You undergo training and rehearsal. You look after your health so that you have energy. Then, when you perform, you put the audience first: you work out a show that serves them. How can you best present the best of what you have in a way that is best for them? 

The How

How do you be kind in business? 

You apply the MAGIC formula: 

Moving 
Attuning 
Giving 
Inspiring 
Connecting

The Who

Who should you be kind to?

  • In the background, you need to be kind to yourself. How do you manage and lead yourself? 
  • In service industries, you need to be kind to your clients. How do you serve your clients? 
  • In leadership, you need to be kind to your team. How do you manage and lead your team? 
  • In sales, you need to be kind to your prospects. How do you serve your prospects?

The Detail

Over the next few weeks, I will be taking a detailed look at what it means to apply the MAGIC formula in all these areas.

Be kind, by MAGIC. 

It’s a business superpower.

+++

Download my free eBook “Be Kind to Yourself” and learn how to:

  • Adapt to new ways of working
  • Harness the power of habits
  • Optimise the use of space in your home
  • Use clothes to boost productivity
  • Focus on what matters
  • Plan for the future amidst uncertainty