Tag: influence

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Be Kind by MAGIC – Inspire your Clients

Inspire your clients

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

—

Emotions are a much more powerful driver than logic. Inspire your clients and you could be the catalyst of life-changing action.

You can inspire your clients in several ways:

  • Help them to see their achievements in a different light,
  • Help them to describe themselves differently,
  • Help them to imagine possible future scenarios, and
  • Help them to set goals to achieve greater things.

But What You Actually Did Was…

Sometimes what we do feels very ordinary, but looks extraordinary to people who are looking on. You can help your clients to see their achievements as something special.

Help your clients to identify defining achievements. This may well involve working with them to reframe what they have already done, to look back at their work and personal lives and realise what they have accomplished. And then re-label it. This can be very affirming and inspiring.

They suddenly realise that they are something that they didn’t realise they were – for example, a facilitator, manager or mentor.

Maybe they have successfully raised four children as a mother? The time, resource and people management lessons and experience from this are significant and all-too-often go unacknowledged.

Did You Realise That You Are Actually A…?

When you enable your client to reframe their past experience, it could inspire them to explore previously unconsidered future roles. Maybe your client has not yet realised that they could legitimately describe themselves as a coach, a mentor, a manager, or some other role?

Look together at what they have done and explore together whether they could describe themselves differently. And once they have started describing themselves differently to themselves, they can be inspired to describe themselves in that way to others as well.

Encourage them to take up a daily mantra or affirmation which they say to themselves first thing in the morning, e.g. “I am a successful manager of people and resources. My work enables others to work together well and ensures that time and materials are used most effectively.”

Repeating this to themselves will shift their self-image and inspire them to see what could happen next.

What Could Be?

Help your clients to imagine possible future scenarios.

You can be brave for them, and imagine a possible future reality which they may be too nervous to imagine for themselves. Whereas they might think it is impossible at the moment, you can ask them the questions, “Why not?”, “Could you possibly do it?”, “What would have to be necessary for you to achieve that?” You may also have ideas that they have never thought of. Help them to create an image of them achieving it, so they can picture it in their mind.

Then encourage your client to identify obstacles. Some may be real, but most are probably perceived and imaginary. Some may be real but possible to overcome, maybe with a little training or some outside help. Again, ask “Why not?” and enable them to picture the obstacles disappearing or being overcome.

Goal!

Inspire your clients by aiding them to set challenging goals.

Michael Hyatt is excellent on this. He identifies three areas in which we can set goals:

  • our comfort zone, goals which are too easy to achieve and therefore don’t stretch us;
  • the delusional zone, goals which are too difficult, and we will never attain them, and thus get discouraged; 
  • and then there is our discomfort zone, the sweet spot for our goals. Projects that will stretch us slightly, but we can get there. We will be challenged and learn things along the way, and grow as a result.

Inspire your clients to set goals in the discomfort zone.

What About Accountants and Lawyers?

You might think that professionals like accountancy and the legal profession have little room for inspiration. But why not?

Identify pain points for your clients, and then show them how you could help them overcome them. Suggest what life could be like for them after they have worked with you. This will inspire them to go ahead and to keep going when things get tough.


Inspiration is potent. It is a real driver. Be kind to your clients, inspire them.

—

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 Your Clients

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 
—

Attuning to your clients is all about understanding them, and then modifying how you serve them as a result.

There are three steps to attuning:

Look and Listen

First, you have to look and listen. Observe your client, ask them questions, find out about them and their situation. Spend some time on this; ask the follow-up questions. Note both what they answer and how they answer. Do any questions make them excited, any make them uncomfortable?

Understand

Next, you need to understand what you have found out.

  • Who are they? Get a take on your client’s personality. Maybe a tool such as DiSC , MBTI  or the Enneagram would be helpful here? You won’t be able to do a full analysis, but you should get some interesting pointers and insights. This will help you to work out how much to affirm and encourage, balanced against how much you can challenge them without frightening them.
  • Where are they? You have to understand their situation. What are their problems? Could you help them solve them? Can you see the issue from another angle and reframe it? Or maybe you can see that their perceived problem is not the real problem in the first place? Perhaps the answer they think they want is not actually the answer that they need?
  • What makes them tick? This is probably the most essential aspect in understanding your client. What are their core values, what is important to them? They may well be different to yours, but you need to understand them so that you do not slip up and offend them, or appear to be driving them in a direction which seems wrong to them.

Modify

Finally, once you have understood your client, you can work out how best to serve them. You can decide how you will modify both the style of your presentation and the content of what you provide. In other words, what you say and how you say it.

  • What?
    Think about the most appropriate content for the person or audience in question.
  • How?
    What is the best way to present it? Will they respond best to didactic teaching or participation, to words or pictures, to visual or audio? Or maybe a mixture? And what tone and language will work best? Formal or informal? Lively and bouncy or more restrained? 

Tricks and Schtick

When I’m performing magic, the way I perform the tricks will vary depending on my audience. Often I may use the same tricks but presented very differently. For example, I have a rope trick that I perform at both children’s parties and corporate drinks receptions: same mechanics, very different presentations. And, of course, there are also some tricks which only work in kids’ parties and some that only work in corporate settings.

It is the same when applying my MAGIC formula to help teams and individuals to improve their working relationships. I present it in a slightly different way to a nonprofit manager’s audience than I will, to the leadership of a bank. It’s the same fundamental material, but with a slightly different approach.

How can you modify your offering to those you serve to make it a better fit for each one?

Think about how you can attune to your clients.

Remember:

Observe, Understand, and then Modify.

—

—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 – Moving Your Clients

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 
—

Moving Your Clients

If you work with clients, you can significantly enhance your offering to them by thinking about how you move them.

How do you move them educationally, moving them from not knowing something to knowing?

How do you help them to see things from a new perspective, moving them from one viewpoint to another viewpoint?

And how do you engage their feelings, moving them emotionally, providing them with an impetus to take action?

Be a Favourite Teacher

You can serve your clients by moving them from one state of knowledge to another. In other words, you can tell them something they didn’t know that will be useful to them.

Maybe it is something about the law? Perhaps a new software tool, services they may be able to access, or some other resources that may be useful to them.

Nifty Shifty

Magicians always have to be careful about angles. If you watch a trick from the wrong place, sometimes you can see things that you weren’t meant to! Seeing things from the best angle is very important for the magic to work.

Working with clients, helping them to see something from another perspective can be very useful. Can you help them to shift to see things from another point of view? To re-frame things, see them from a distance, take an outsider’s view?

Maybe they have intellectual or emotional doubts that are stopping them progressing?  Sometimes those doubts are based on real barriers, but very often, the obstacles are just imagined or perceived. The doubts are like little gremlins sitting on the shoulders that need punching in the nose. Can you help them to shift their viewpoint, so they can sort out the real from the imagined?

Imagine How You Will Feel When…

What emotions can you engage in your clients?

Can you excite them about potential, about what they can imagine happening, but also about what they can’t yet imagine happening? The excitement can motivate them to begin exploring new territory.

Can you help them to flip nervousness about the future, into excitement about adventure?

Can you get them to reflect on the changes they have seen and the progress they have made so that they feel satisfaction and pride?

Maybe there’s even space for inducing a little fear about the consequences of inaction?

Even if you are a lawyer, accountant or in some other seemingly unemotional occupation, there is still scope to engage the emotions of your clients. Paint an imaginative picture of how someone’s life will be better as a result of your involvement. Let them see the potential for change and feel the related emotions.

Moving is a fundamental characteristic of living things. Make sure that you and your clients are moving.

How can you move your clients today?

—

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 – Connecting 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 
—

I’m Back

Sorry that I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks. Many thanks to those of you who noticed – it’s nice to be missed 🙂

I’ve been on holiday. This has given me a chance to connect to myself, to think about life a bit.

Connecting to yourself is the subject of today’s blog.

Why Connect?

Why should you connect to yourself?

Think about bank statements. Remember paper statements? Some of you might still get them! We all know that you have to open the envelope and look at the bank statement, even if you don’t want to. There is no benefit in denial. It will only make the situation worse.

In the same way, it is vital to connect to yourself so that you are aware of where you’re at, and why you are doing what you’re doing. If something is not right, there is no point living in denial and carrying on regardless. It would only make things worse.

It is so easy to go through life on autopilot, never stopping to ask ourselves why we are doing things. This is how we get stuck in a rut. This is how we lose energy and become listless.

Once you have given yourself the chance to be self-aware, you need to listen to your mind, you need to listen to your body. 

What questions should you ask yourself? What answers should you listen out for? How do you make time to make sure connecting to yourself happens?

The Question of Which Questions?

I have been reminded recently about the importance of connecting with our why. I was talking last week to Amy Rowlinson, who has the fantastic podcast “Focus on Why.” Simon Sinek is also famous for encouraging us to “Start with Why”.

Ask yourself, why you are doing what you are doing? Or, maybe, why you are not doing what you want to be doing?

Once you have worked out your motivation, ask yourself, “Is this working?”

Am I enjoying what I’m doing? Could I do it in a different way to make it more enjoyable? Most of the time, most of the agency for making changes to our working habits lies with ourselves. Work out what needs to change and then make a concrete plan to change it.

Am I working towards my goals or just marking time? It is so easy to fill your day with “busy work” that achieves little and does not move you forward. Could you make any changes to keep you on track?

Body Conscious

Listen to your body.

Am I tired? Am I aching? Feeling sharp? Energetic? Could I make any changes? Revised sleep patterns, change of diet, new office chair….?

Maybe you need to go and see the doctor? Again, there is nothing to be gained by denial.

Life-Saving Routine

Last week, I watched the fantastic David Blaine’s “Ascension.”

I’m a fan of David Blaine as a magician, but he also does these amazing stunts. In this one, he had a bunch of 52 helium balloons. He held on to it as they took him to 23,000 feet, and then he skydived off. The whole thing was live on YouTube. Incredible.

What was very apparent is that he had a strict routine for checking, every step of the way.

At 23,000 feet, held on by a cable to the balloons, he had to put on his parachute. He put it on, and he checked the straps and buckles in strict sequence, at least twice.

It was drilled into him. He had a checking routine. If he hadn’t done it, He would have been risking his life.

Do you have a checking routine for your life?

I would recommend it. If you don’t do it, you are risking a fulfilled life.

What do I mean by this?

Love Your Reflection

I am a huge advocate of building and reflective practices into your life, daily, weekly, and periodically.

Each day, I recommend journaling. A journal can be in various forms. Years ago, I used to do the “artists pages”, recommended by Julia Cameron in the Artists Way (#ad). Two sides of A4 of a stream of consciousness freeform prose, whatever comes into your head. It’s amazing what you write down! You get a real insight into your inner workings.

These days it is more structured and quicker. I do a bullet point journal inspired by Michael Hyatt. It’s a systematic way of reflecting on yesterday and planning for today.

I also walk the dog each day and make a point of not listening to music or podcasts while I’m doing this. My mind is then free to process stuff, to think about life.

Weekly, I do a more involved journal entry every Sunday morning. And I also have a kayaking trip where I take myself off for three hours by myself in nature. Again a chance to process stuff, to think, or even just to zone out for a change. I stop for lunch on the river bank, cook it up on a little stove. It’s a great chance to lie on my back in a field, watch the clouds scud by and ask myself how I’m doing.

And periodically. It’s good to take yourself away on holiday, or maybe even a retreat where you take a deep dive into what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you plan to do next.

On reflection, are you reflecting enough?

Be kind to yourself, connect to yourself.


—

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 – 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.

—

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
Posted on

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.

—
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.