Episode 39: Overcoming Your Blocks Being an Effective Leader

This episode is about overcoming the blocks to leadership and fulfilling your potential as a leader. 

The thing that gets in the way of good leadership is our mental blocks. Our psychology. And what we have to do is learn to persist no matter what the obstacles no matter what the challenges in a matter what the failures.

After all, any leadership skill or other skill that is required to succeed, can be learned.

But mental blocks must be overcome they must be challenged and resolved so that you can think differently and continue to thrive and grow.

What I see most of all in my own clients is the frustrating thing that they have such amazing ability to help people, to change lives, or to resolve their own issues.

And yet they are unable to put themselves out there, to market their business, to believe in themselves, to put themselves first or to talk about what they do because they’re fearful. They have mental blocks.

Leadership is all about your ability to move past this and to persist no matter what. To feel the fear and do it anyway in the words of Stephen Covey.

So what you need to learn how to do is to change your state, as Tony Robbins would say.

In any given moment you may feel frustrated or fearful or held back or blasé or complacent. And to be a leader in your own life on your business or in the world you need to change that state into passion, excitement, ambition, inspiration, creativity, or even just resilience.

Your brain behaves differently depending on whether it’s in a positive or negative state. When your brain is in a negative state it can’t see the future it can’t see the opportunity for change and it cannot move forward. When your brain is inspired passionate positive and resilient then you can see opportunities you are able to move forward you’re able to take action. And leadership is all about the ability to take action and to get traction and to get a result in your life or in your business.

Let’s talk for a moment about your ability to change state. I’m sure you’d agree that stress or anxiety or fear or worry are all a waste of time. They are useless emotions. And so what you need to do is to learn to sit with that for just a moment, and then to move on to what you need to do the action the plan the tactic.

Because that is where the gold is. When you’re able to take action things will move forward.

But if you get pulled down and what’s not possible in what hard it was fearful it was challenging then you will not move forward and that is not leadership.

Part of your ability to take action is your willingness to take a risk. I mean let’s face it leadership is a lot about doing your known and feeling uncomfortable so that you can progress and move forward and tread new ground and make new discoveries.

You also need to learn how to get out of a stressed brain state and there are two simple ways to do this.

Firstly, you can work on your mental chatter. After all, the negative thoughts that you think repeatedly, eventually become beliefs. And you can use written thought-change techniques to alter these thinking patterns, so you can rewire your thinking and naturally become more positive and develop more self-belief.

The easiest example is to write down a negative or self-defeating thought you’re having, and to reframe it as a more positive, or at least a neutral, version.

For example, if you say to yourself “I’m frustrated and bored” then that’s how you’ll feel.

But if you write that down, then rewrite an alternative, such as “I notice I’m frustrated, so now I will focus on something else” – you are consciously creating a new pattern, based in fact, that is believable.

One of the easiest ways to do this apart from working on your mind is to work with your body. Tony Robbins has been talking for years about power poses. And Harvard medical has done a study that proves unequivocally, That’s spending two minutes in a power pose will totally change your attitude, build your confidence and engage the part of your brain that creates excitement.

You can absolutely train yourself to be in a peak state so that you can lead yourself and your business and your life and your kids in a way that is energising, exciting, inspiring, positive, and in a way that generates the success that you want in your life.