Here are the titbits of This Past Week.
Last seven days were about improving your executive presence, thinking about your career and planning out your life.
How To Train Your Executive Presence
Drama teachers train leaders in their offices; not how to act but how to be more of themselves. They teach them how to relax, how to move and how to use their voice. If your presence feels too rigid find ways to: relax whole body by stretching, train your voice by singing and reading out loud (especially before presenting), analyse yourself with AI and seek feedback.
Care a Little Less, Like Michelle Obama
Communications experts on Think Fast Talk Smart (podcast) often cite Michelle Obama as a standout communicator. She is authentic, warm, funny and great at building rapport. She doesn’t seem to care what others think of her. There is a lesson in that: if you want to communicate with power you have to care less about being liked.
James Clear Has A Better Question For You
A popular question in career coaching: “If money wasn’t an issue, what would you do?” assumes that people would always want to work even if money wasn’t a problem. To get to a more workable answer try James Clear’s question instead: “If you lived in a world where everyone made the exact same salary, what would you choose to do for work?
Life Lessons – Signals To What You Want
Take a piece of paper and write down what you wish you had known earlier. What you write down will give you an answer to what you want and – to your values. If you wish you had taken more career opportunities, then having a career is important to you. If you wish you made more friends, then having a larger social circle is important you.
On Why We Stay In The Same Job
Have you ever felt that it’s time to move on only to stay for another x years? We stay because our jobs provides stability (money, predictability, identity, belonging) even as they stop providing growth. But if you still feel the pull to move on think: how could you do something about in three months, instead of staying for another 3 years?
Always Have a Plan
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, had a 25-year career plan. Two out of 25 years went according to his plan and 23 years not – they went even better. He joined Apple. Plans don’t always go our way – how lucky in this case, but having a plan always wins over not having one. If you don’t have a plan, how do you know where you are going?
How To Get Your Power Back
Where do you want to be in five years from now without thinking of how you will get here, without thinking about restrictions? Graham Weaver, Stanford Professor and Owner of Investing firm Alpine, wrote down his own story during the financial crisis in 2008 with the help of an executive coach. It turned around his business and his life. Write down your own story, then play back what needs to happen each day, each week, each month for you to achieve it.
What has changed for you this past week?
Write to welcome@standoutjane.com and share the changes and aspirations from your own life and work.
Bon Weekend.