Leadership and Intense Relaxation

Newsletter 19 - 3 March 2005 This is the newsletter for www.mindtools.com. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. This newsletter is published by James Manktelow of Mind Tools Ltd, Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email newsletter@mindtools.com.

Contents: Learn to Lead Imagery & Relaxation Relaxation MP3s Get Slightly Famous Answer Your Call A Final Note

In this edition of the Mind Tools newsletter, we preview Mind Tools' soon-to-be launched course, "Learn to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You." In doing so, we provide you with a sneak peek at what is to come and hope that, after taking this quick look, you will share our excitement about this comprehensive, energizing and truly life-changing course!

We then take another look at Imagery, one of Mind Tools "old favorites". Imagery is a powerful technique that is important both for mental rehearsal of forthcoming events and for achieving intense relaxation.

We look at Imagery as an introduction to the launch of our Relaxation MP3s. Up to now at Mind Tools we've focused on helping people manage stress by tackling the fundamental issues behind it. This is a truly powerful approach, however it takes a lot of time and effort.

Now, with the Mind Tools Relaxation MP3, we complement this long-term approach with a series of 15-minute audio tracks which help you manage the day-to-day stresses you experience. Using guided imagery and deep breathing, our MP3s help you quickly calm down after intense stress so that you can face the rest of your day fresh and re-energized. We're proud to launch the MP3s in this newsletter.

We move on by reviewing Steven Van Yoder's book, "Get Slightly Famous: How to Become a Mini Celebrity in Your Field." While geared more toward the small business owner and the entrepreneur, this book provides a great deal of strong information and tried tips on effectively self-marketing in the 21st Century - important for establishing yourself as a valued expert in your own industry.

We have also included an advertorial by career coach Craig Nathanson, that includes a story about someone who, in the midst of mid-life, finally pursues a career that makes him happy, but not without sacrifices. In this advertorial, Nathanson explains the importance of choosing a career of passion and points to the "mid-life" time as a time of change, making it a perfect time to finally pursue something you love.

Finally, we're pleased to announce the winners of the $100 Amazon.com vouchers awarded to three randomly-selected people who answered the survey in our January and February newsletters. So without further delay, I'm pleased to announce the winners as Kathy Fraser and two others whose email addresses begin with "kgolden" and "ghraichy" (apologies - yet to find out real names!) We'll be contacting them over the next few days to arrange delivery of the vouchers. And of course, thank you to everyone who helped with the survey: The information you gave us has been extremely useful in helping us make sure that we give you what you want in the future.

As always, we hope you enjoy this edition of the Mind Tools newsletter as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you. And, we encourage you to keep your questions, comments and suggestions coming. In fact, in response to a request made by a reader just last week, we have begun researching upcoming articles on attitude and motivation. So, look for these and many more to be covered in your Mind Tools newsletter very soon.

Best wishes, and enjoy the newsletter!

James & Kellie

Mind Tools Preview: "Learn to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You"

Everyone has seen a good leader in action. And, as we have all witnessed, he or she seems to easily create a vision, influence others to commit to the vision and then empowers these same individuals to succeed in achieving the vision.

Additionally, he or she simultaneously wears different hats, acting as teacher, cheerleader, even as a sounding board, as the “team” works to make the vision a reality.

In watching this phenomenon, most of us have wondered: Can strong, effective, productive, successful leadership be learned?

The answer to this question is a clear, definitive “Yes.”

In fact, some leadership skills and behaviors are already present in you. You just have to learn to tap into them fully. Some of them may be foreign to you now, but with a little bit of perseverance and application you can learn to cultivate them.

Charisma, empathy and genius:
Traits such as these fall solely in the “born” category and cannot really be mastered fully if you don't have them. But we usually attach far more importance to them than they actually deserve. No doubt such traits are a major advantage, yet neither are they sufficient, nor necessary to become a successful leader. In fact:

• If you have them and don’t complement them with other important skills, they will not amount to much; and
• If you don’t have them, but try and compensate for this deficit by beefing up other skills, you can still become a successful leader.

Becoming an effective leader, you see, is not about becoming a master of all leadership skills. Rather, it is about recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and then finding ways to nurture the former and overcome the latter. You have to learn to recognize the tools and opportunities that you have access to and then use these effectively to carry you forward in your leadership journey.

A successful leader is a model of integrity and fairness and:

• Sets clear goals
• Has high expectations
• Encourages
• Provides support and recognition
• Stirs the emotions of people
• Gets people to look beyond their self-interest
• Inspires people to reach for the improbable

Our course, “Learn to Lead: Discover the Leader in You” not only helps you gain the skills of an effective leader, it teaches you to identify situations where you need to practice other leadership styles. These include:

1. Self-Awareness: An effective leader knows himself/herself and uses this knowledge to perform better. “Learn to Lead: Discover the Leader in You” recognizes that you are an individual, a certain kind of person, and therefore doesn’t sell a one fit-for-all solution. Rather, it encourages you to understand yourself. We provide you various ways to assess your leadership profile so that you can focus on using your strengths to offset your weak points.
   
2. The Burn to Lead: Effective leaders are self-motivated, self-confident people. They want to lead. Drive and energy identify them. The Mind Tools course provides you with the tools to build this passion, persistence, and confidence within you. We give you ways to instill the will to lead within you. We teach you techniques to stay positive.
   
3. Idea Generation: Effective leaders, although not necessarily geniuses, are characterized by strong technical and conceptual skills. This gives them the edge in generating ideas and building vision. “Learn to Lead: Discover the Leader in You” shows you how to gain knowledge and stay on top of change. We discuss techniques that help you diagnose and analyze shifting, complex situations so that you become a pro-active person, one who stays at least one step ahead of change. We teach you to make the move from generating solutions to generating new ideas and building vision.
   
4. People Skills: Effective leaders carry people with them. They can inspire people and get them to achieve their goals.The Mind Tools course teaches you how to understand, communicate with and motivate other people, both individually and in groups. We equip you with the necessary tools to help you get the job done. It also focuses on ways to develop your people.
   
5. The Edge: Hard to define, this is the ability that makes the difference between the ordinary and extraordinary. In “Learn to Lead”, we explore this and help you find your own leadership edge.

The Beta Program of “Learn to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You” will be launched in our early April Newsletter, with full publication in May 2005.

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Mind Tools “Old Favorites”:
Imagery – Mental stress management

Sometimes we are not able to change our environment to manage stress – this may be the case where we do not have the power to change a situation, or where we are about to give an important performance. Imagery is a useful skill for relaxing in these situations. It is a potent method of stress reduction, especially when combined with physical relaxation methods such as deep breathing.

You will be aware of how particular environments can be very relaxing, while others can be intensely stressful. The principle behind the use of imagery in stress reduction is that you can use your imagination to recreate and enjoy a situation that is very relaxing. The more intensely you imagine the situation, the more relaxing the experience will be.

This sounds unlikely. In fact, the power of imagery can be shown very effectively if you have access to biofeedback equipment. By imagining a pleasant and relaxing scene (which reduces stress) you can objectively see the measured stress in your body reduce. By imagining an unpleasant and stressful situation, you can see the stress in your body increase. This very real effect can be quite alarming when you see it happen the first time!

Using the Tool:
Imagery in Relaxation
One common use of imagery in relaxation is to imagine a scene, place or event that you remember as safe, peaceful, restful, beautiful and happy. You can bring all your senses into the image with, for example, sounds of running water and birds, the smell of cut grass, the taste of cool white wine, the warmth of the sun, and so on. Use the imagined place as a retreat from stress and pressure.

Scenes can involve complex images such as lying on a beach in a deserted cove. You may “see” cliffs, sea and sand around you, “hear” the waves crashing against rocks, “smell” the salt in the air, and “feel” the warmth of the sun and a gentle breeze on your body. Other images might include looking at a mountain view, swimming in a tropical pool, or whatever you want.

You may want to come up with the most effective images for yourself, or you may prefer pre-prepared imagery scripts like Mind Tools “The Island”, which we’ll tell you more about in the next article: These are particularly useful when you’re tired at the end of a day, and don’t have the energy or motivation to create imagery for yourself.

Other uses of imagery in relaxation involve creating mental pictures of stress flowing out of your body, or of stress, distractions and everyday concerns being folded away and locked into a padlocked chest.

Imagery in Preparation and Rehearsal
You can also use imagery in rehearsal before a big event, allowing you to run through the event in your mind, practicing your performance and experiencing in advance the sensations you expect, so that you are prepared for them properly.

Aside from allowing you to rehearse mentally, imagery also allows you to practice in advance for anything unusual that might occur, so that you are prepared and already practiced in handling it. This is a technique used very commonly by top sportspeople, who learn good performance habits by repeatedly rehearsing performances in their imagination. When the unusual eventualities they have rehearsed using imagery occur, they have good, pre-prepared, habitual responses to them.

Imagery also allows you to pre-experience achievement of your goals, helping to give you the self-confidence you need to do something well. This is another technique used by successful athletes.

Summary:
With imagery, you substitute actual experience with scenes from your imagination. Your body reacts to these imagined scenes almost as if they were real, calming you down and letting adrenaline disperse.

To relax with imagery, imagine a warm, comfortable, safe and pleasant place, and enjoy it in your imagination.

Imagery can be shown to work by using biofeedback devices that measure body stress. By imagining pleasant and unpleasant scenes, you can actually see or hear the changing levels of stress in your body diminish.

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New Mind Tools:
Rest and De-Stress With Mind Tools’ Relaxation MP3s

As we said earlier, in this issue of the newsletter we’re very pleased to launch our new Mind Tools Relaxation MP3s. The MP3s bring together guided imagery, suggestion and deep breathing to deliver intense relaxation in a format that’s incredibly convenient and easy-to-use. We looked at Imagery in the last article: it’s an important techniques used by top sportspeople and performers the world over to relax and deliver the very best performances when under pressure.

And the effectiveness of deep breathing and physical relaxation techniques was shown conclusively in research by Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard University (we reviewed his book, "The Relaxation Response", in our 29 July 2004 newsletter). Based on the firm foundations of these techniques, the MP3s are powerful tools that you can rely on to calm the stress you experience.

Convenient, Instantly Accessible and Easy-to-Use
At 15-minutes long, the MP3s are long enough to deliver intense relaxation, at the same time that they are short enough to use at key points during the day. This means that you can use them to de-stress during breaks, helping you face the rest of your day fresh, calm and re-invigorated.

And as MP3s, you can download them right now from the Mind Tools site, and play them on your PC or MP3 player at a time and in a place that suits you – whether at work, on the train or at home – time and again.

Find out more about our MP3s at http://www.mindtools.com/rs/MP3s.

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Book Review: Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort, By Steven Van Yoder
Reviewed by Kellie Fowler

In a previous newsletter, we published an article by Steven Van Yoder on “How to Get Slightly Famous in Print”. We liked this so much that we’re now reviewing his original book. What's important to remember is that while this article focuses on small businesses and entrepreneurs, others can use the same techniques to establish themselves as experts - "high fliers" - in their own industries...

Small business owners and entrepreneurs with limited marketing budgets often find it difficult to successfully promote their products and services in the same arena as those of competitors who have access to bulging budgets.

That was until now.

Armed with Steven Van Yoder’s book, “Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort” small business owners and budding entrepreneurs can finally conquer this growing problem with proven common sense strategies that make them a mini celebrity, or a true go-to resource, in their own field. This translates into increased exposure, which, in turn, means increased profits.

This book provides a toolbox of strategies for:

• Getting consistent media attention
• Using speaking engagements to cultivate your target market
• Becoming a center of influence within your industry
• Leveraging the Internet to its full potential
• Creating ancillary “info-products” that supplement your income and build public awareness

Truly valuable and fun to read, “Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort” is a real eye-opener, and is sure to an asset for anyone looking to grow their business by attracting more clients, without breaking the marketing budget.

Van Yoder is realistic in his approach and recognizes that technology has thrust all businesses – large and small - into a global marketplace, then takes this realization and offers real solutions for setting any business away from the pack, or, as he calls it, breaking out of the anonymity trap.

The book is a roadmap to help any small business break out of the anonymity trap and effectively attract more customers. Chocked full of practical tips and techniques, advice from leading marketing experts, and dozens of real-world success stories from fellow Get Slightly Famous entrepreneurs, this book will always be within arms reach, as I plan to rely on it for some time to come!

You can find Steven Van Yoder’s “Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort” on Amazon.com.

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Advertorial: How to Answer Your Call in Mid-Life
By Craig Nathanson, Vocational Coach

Hank Bochenski’s story proves it is never too late to walk away from a life you feel trapped in and do something that you really love.

Hank spent 30 years in demanding senior positions at large high-tech companies. By the time he went home each day, he felt like all the blood had been drained out of him.

Hank’s real passion was his collection of more than 1,000 movies. He had recently spent hours converting the collection from VHS to DVD, a process he enjoyed. One day his wife walked by as he worked on this project and said: “Too bad you can’t make money doing this.”

Before his wife’s offhand remark, he hadn’t considered that he could do this full time. He did some research and found a company called Home Video Studio Inc., in Indianapolis. HVS offers 21 services, including DVD transfers, DVD duplications, home movie transfers, photo-video keepsakes, sports scholarship videos and videotape repair.

Hank and his wife did some due diligence and decided that this was a perfect opportunity for them and they went ahead and got into the video duplication business. And to top it all off, Hank's studio is in his own home – no more 1.5-hour each way daily commute.

What Happens in Mid-Life?
Mid-life is a time of challenges and crossroads. Often we re-evaluate our relationships, become more concerned about our health or worry about whether we are as financially secure as we should be. The biggest challenges in mid-life often involve our careers, and more centrally, whether our careers are providing the fulfillment we crave, or are simply exhausting us physically and emotionally.

In mid-life, fulfillment and meaning begin to compete with paychecks and perks, and the paycheck and perks all-too-often win.

Answering the Call to Vocational Passion
Before you can take action to change the course of your life and pursue your vocational passion, it is critical to take an inventory of your life and what is really important. You must begin by understanding what is missing.

You need to have a dream and a plan for achieving it. Start by making a list of the things that are missing in your life. Is it a passion from your youth that you can never find time to pursue? Is it music, a sport, writing, cooking, activism, entrepreneurship, working with kids? It doesn’t matter, as long as it is something you long to do, and have enough passion to do it full time.

You need to understand not only where your passion is, but also where your strengths lie. Make a list of the things you are passionate about, and then narrow the list to those items that present an opportunity to generate income. An interest in rock climbing suggests opening a store that sells climbing equipment.

Perhaps some past volunteer work with disabled kids leads to earning a certificate to teach full time.

Once you’ve narrowed your list and have matched your aptitudes and interests, it’s time to take a good look at your support network. Do you know people who care about what you are passionate about? If not, what organizations or social networks could you tap into to build a better personal network to help you make your big vocational change?

Begin the Journey with a Lighter Backpack
Finally, you need to think about money - how it comes in and where it goes. Treat your money with more respect. Making better choices in how you spend your money will make it easier to free yourself to change the direction of your life.

Examine ways to lighten your backpack. Do you really need 100 Cable channels? How many shoes, credit cards and watches does it take to make you happy? Would life be any more difficult if you drove a used Toyota instead of a brand new Lexus?

These are the kinds of questions that Hank Bochenski and his family asked themselves as they made the difficult but ultimately rewarding decision to throw it all away for a simpler, yet more fulfilling lifestyle.

Hank is much happier. He is having fun every day. And while his life is more modest than before, his family is living comfortably. His pursuit of vocational passion has cost him little materially, yet the spiritual dividends have been immense.

Craig Nathanson is a vocational coach and is the author of “P Is For Perfect: Your Perfect Vocational Day." Again, this is available on Amazon.com.

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A Final note from James

I hope you've enjoyed this issue - there's a lot in it, but I hope you can see how excited we are about ongoing developments - in particular with the MP3s and "Learn to Lead". We've wanted to develop the MP3s for several years now, but have been looking for the right way of doing it - I strongly believe that the approach we've now used delivers deep relaxation, based on properly proven principles.

And we've co-written "Learn to Lead" with Professor Felix Brodbeck of Aston Business School, fusing Felix's expert knowledge of Leadership with our own tools-based approach. I hope that this will give you a thoroughly comprehensive, practical and accessible course - one that will help you achieve your full leadership potential.

Looking forward to the next issue, we're concentrating on helping you make the very best use of your time. As we mentioned in the introduction, we'll also have the first of two articles on motivation. And we'll review: "Triumph From Failure: Lessons from Life for Business Success" by Alistar McAlpine and Kate Dixey.

Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

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