You Got This!

The theme of 2021’s 7th annual JD Evolution Live Leadership Conference was “Making Money | Doing Good” and according to John Dame, the best companies are doing this through an “intentional and robust culture and team.” The highlights of the October event included a morning workshop, a growth panel discussion, and an afternoon keynote speaker.

Perhaps you are similar to us. You attend conferences and workshops with inspiring messages and strong calls to action, you’re pumped up and your mental wheels are turning, and then you arrive back at the office and lay the program and your notes in a pile. That pile becomes the landing place for other items and soon, that conference or workshop program is buried several layers below the top, along with the notes you quickly jotted down. At the moment, that event ignites our ideas and creates a burst of energy. The conflict arises when we realize the demands of life seldom allow space to process. Instead of seeing this as a failure, we have chosen to handle the pile differently.

First, a little background:

In November, we shared our first impressions about the morning workshop, led by David Friedman, author of Culture by Design, on the importance of culture in the workplace. Employees boast or complain about their workplace culture, but what exactly is it and where does it come from?

Dr. Ivan Joseph, the afternoon Keynote, spoke about creating a culture for a high-performing team. Immigrant, athlete, scholarship recipient, award-winning coach, academic leader, author, and recipient of Forbes’ Top 10 TED Talk about The Meaning of Life figure among the many titles he holds. According to Dr. Joseph, self-confidence, cohesion, and expectations drive team performance. His background in athletics, sports psychology, and organizational leadership echoed throughout his presentation that day. Leaders from many industries listened attentively while Dr. Joseph made it clear that whether on the field, at the office or at home, self-confidence can be the difference between success and failure of your team.

As with a physical skill like kicking or throwing a ball, self-confidence is a skill that can be learned and honed. We left Evolution 2021 with a copy of his book You Got This: Mastering the Skill of Self-Confidence. And that is how we come back to the pile. We intentionally scheduled this time to rediscover the book and read it.

What we realized is that we should have never buried the book! This is more than a book; you are not just reading Dr. Joseph’s words. He engages you with personal stories and examples and then asks the reader to contribute. You read that correctly - contribute! It may look like a book, but it is more like a workbook. Throughout each chapter, you are asked to write down your ideas, make lists, answer direct and multiple-choice questions. This is not passive or shallow reading. It is a true exercise of introspection wrapped in scientific explanations and real-world examples.

Without revealing too much, here is a list of chapters and The Communication Gym’s message from each one.

1. Become a Crazy One: The Skill of Self-Confidence - No one will believe in you unless you do.

2. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition: How to Acquire a Skill - No matter how old you are, your brain continues to change in response to your thinking, habits, and experiences. Self-confidence is a skill according to Dr. Joseph because your brain is plastic. And mental skills are actually easier to hone than physical ones! As you already know, skill practice lies at the core of what we do @ The Gym.

3. Think you Can: The Skill of Positive Thought - Change your thoughts and you change the world. (Norman Vincent Peale) We hear this all the time in response to our own self-confidence, but apply it to your team and it looks a little different. When coaching others, point out the behaviors you want to see more of, not the ones you don’t. Positive reinforcement results in positive behaviors being replicated. Catch them being good!

4. Select Excellence: The Skill of Team Building - A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skill of the others. (Norman S. Hidle) Surround yourself with people who believe in you and who you look up to. A culture where everyone is trying to elevate their performance breeds success.

5. Get Up Again: The Skill of Grit - Focus on the process, not the outcome. If you’re a manager, coach or parent, you know this is difficult to do when giving feedback. But ultimately, the process requires effort and commitment, not the outcome.

6. Strive for More: The Skill of Higher Expectations - People will rise to your minimum level of expectation -- set the bar high. Need we say more?

7. Pay Attention: The Skill of Focus - “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” (Zig Ziglar) We improve what we focus on improving.

8. Find Your Why: Discovering Your Transcendent Purpose - Pursue your passion and success will follow you. Find your why and throw your heart into it. We wrote about this idea when our Founder Dale Fallon shared the history of The Communication Gym’s Leadership MVP Program.

9. One Step at a Time: The Daily Journey to Self-Confidence - Life is going to throw stones at your self-confidence. Accepting that and realizing that each challenge is another opportunity to grow and practice helps erase those doubts that creep in. This is a life-long pursuit...don’t quit!

We know we should not live with regrets, but we should have never laid this book on the pile. This would have been the perfect stocking stuffer last month! However, the satisfaction now lies in the good timing of this read.

New Year, New You, right?

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