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Hi I'm Leila Bulling-Towne

Welcome to this course on emotional intelligence or EQ.

As an executive coach I work with leaders every day to help them raise their
emotional intelligence.

Many of these leaders are proactively developing their ability to recognize

understand and manage their

emotions.

Others are learning about EQ because they have found themselves in sticky
situations. They've discovered

they're better known for their tempers than for their expertise.

This course is an introduction to EQ and will help you in many situations. Whether
you're here because

you are curious about emotional intelligence or because you need to make some
changes in your behavior

fast.

Let's cover a few basics about how this course material is organized and how to
participate.

There are five sections with several lectures and activities.

There are worksheets to download and also extras on what to read when you want more
information.

My role is to provide you with a clear concise and interesting introduction to EQ.
I will share my knowledge

experience and just a little bit of research.

I love this subject and I hope you will develop a passion for it too.

My point of view comes from years of experience working with C-level leaders,
startup founders, and

people leading global teams.

I've work with leaders all over the world: the U.S., England, Germany, Australia,
India, Singapore are just

some of the places where I've helped people use EQ to increase their personal
engagement and company

success.

We'll start with fundamentals on what EQ is and what's going on in your brain.

I'll discuss why EQ is important for individuals like you as well as for companies.
We'll identify the
emotions that make you feel uncomfortable and then move on to identifying how you
feel when you're being

emotionally hijacked.

We'll work on developing your EQ by learning to identify the emotions you're

feeling and why you're

feeling them.

We'll figure out the buttons that are being pushed figuratively to make you feel
agitated frustrated

and not at your best.

We'll also discuss how EQ manifests itself in the workplace.

I have several activities planned to help with your EQ development and I'm excited
to share with you

my firm belief that your investment of time in this course will lead to more
productive and motivating

days at work and more fun too.

So let's get started with an activity to help you get in touch with your emotions
at work.

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Our first activity is about emotions at work.

Think about where you work.

The people around you, the situations you find yourself in. A range of emotions
come into play each day.

Think back to a time when you felt uncomfortable at work. Which emotions, when you
experience them yourself

or you see others in the grip of them, make you feel uncomfortable? When you feel
these emotions or see

them

you just want to run and hide or cover yourself up.

You feel embarrassed or maybe even distressed.

Here are a few examples. Perhaps in a recent meeting you observed a colleague
stumble during a high

stakes presentation.

Maybe he wasn't able to defend his point of view or he was intensely grilled by a
few people. And you

took a look at him,

saw his red face, saw him start to sweat literally and figuratively, and you
thought oh wow he is embarrassed.

He is ashamed.

This is so awkward.

You may or may not have thought to yourself.

Yikes.

I don't like seeing people in that situation but in this case it seems like the
feeling of embarrassment

is one that makes you uncomfortable at work.

Here's another example. You may have recently witnessed two colleagues arguing over
a project plan.

One person begins to speak louder as the discussion progresses.

Beginning to wave his hands and the other person does the same.

The argument escalates and soon the two of them are shouting at each other, really
getting into each other's

faces.

Was the scene horrifying to you?

Were you starting to feel physically sick to your stomach while watching this? Is
watching people get

angry or yelling at each other

distressing? Is anger an emotion you struggle with? Here's a final example. Let's
imagine you're one of

the many people who doesn't enjoy public speaking or you have a fear of it
especially in a work setting.

Every time you think about standing up in front of a group of people you imagine
their eyes just staring

right at you, their faces looking bored. You feel nervous, you're afraid you'll
disappoint them. Is humiliation

an emotion that makes you uncomfortable? You're beginning your EQ learning by

thinking about the emotions

you feel and witness that caused discomfort for you and you'll soon learn.

Self-awareness is the first step in developing your EQ. So download the worksheet
attach this lecture
and complete the activity. To make this easy for you,

I have a list of emotions there for you to review.

Read through the list and check off the emotions that make you feel uncomfortable
at work or add some

others that I haven't listed.

It's fine if you only come up with a few ideas.

This is not a contest. You'll need no more than 5 to 10 minutes to complete this
activity.

You are the only one reviewing your answers so don't rush and be honest with
yourself.

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Most of us spend our lives trying to be smarter to learn more to raise our
intelligence.

You could decide you were going to raise your IQ.

You could devote weeks months years to becoming smarter.

Unfortunately it's very unlikely you will make great strides in upping your IQ.

You can learn a new foreign language learn to code become smart at something that I
know you can do.

Yet your IQ in terms of a number won't change much.

That's because your IQ is determined by a series of standardized tests.

These tests haven't changed in a long time.

So even if in theory your IQ changes it likely would make little to no impact in

your success at work.

Think about all the behaviors at work.

They're so valuable to have dealing with people teams social situations the ability
to assess the emotions

of others building relationships and so forth.

These things don't necessarily come easier if you have a high IQ a high IQ doesn't
predict success at

work.

E q is a much more reliable indicator of success at work.

E q is where it's at.

People with high IQ are the majority of the top performers.

They make better work decisions for themselves their peers and their companies.

They are well situated to take on exciting opportunities within and outside of
their organizations and

they make more money than people with low IQ executives with high IQ are more
likely to succeed than

those with high IQ sales people with high IQ sell more and managers with high IQ
have higher performing

teams with less turnover of top employees.

So I feel if you have a choice to make you want to raise your IQ or you want to
raise your IQ IQ is

the way to go.

So let's define what IQ is.

Once you understand it I feel you will really get why it is so important.

Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize how your emotions are governing
your decisions your

thinking.

Once you learn about how emotions affect you physically and mentally you are able
to learn what to do

to change your reactions.

This is not necessarily about changing your emotions or hiding them.

You want to identify them and understand why you are feeling a certain way and be
more aware of what

to do differently or not.

By the way I've already let you know IQ is the common abbreviation for Emotional
Intelligence.

Sometimes you see emotional intelligence abbreviated as EAI.

In this case any Q both stand for the same concept.

Now one of the things I really love about IQ is a concept is that most of the
thinking tools articles

and books out there use very similar models and definitions.

What's challenging about the topic is that there is so much information out there.

It can be overwhelming even for someone like me who loves reading and researching
about IQ and coaching

around it.

Now in any given day I have high IQ.

Like when I'm meeting with clients the middle of great coaching discussions and
then I have lower IQ.

End of the day.

Dealing with traffic kids and homework fatigue.

I want your goal to be to raise your IQ not to be perfect at it.

IQ is not about pushing emotions down or keeping them bottled up.

Instead it's about recognizing how you feel and determining if your emotions are
positively or negatively

influencing your words and actions.

I'll repeat that because once you absorb this idea you can begin to really see how
you can make an amazing

difference at work and in your life.

IQ is about identifying how you feel and taking an opportunity to decide how your
emotions are helping

or hindering you in the work you do and the relationships you have in our next
lecture we will dive

into a model for e q and you'll start to see how emotional intelligence is showing
up all around you

at work.

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Let's go over a model for E.

The concept of emotional intelligence is broken down into four sections.

Self-awareness self-management social awareness Relationship Management let's

define each of these sections.

Self-awareness is your ability to be aware of your feelings in the moment as they

are developing you

feel them and you understand why they are there.

It's about getting to know yourself listening to yourself your body your mind and
your heart.

It's about being self aware as your body physically reacts to people and
situations.

Are you feeling changes.

Do you feel tense before you start a tough conversation and make the connection
between the feeling

in your body and the situation that you're in.

If so you're being self-aware aware self-management involves managing your emotions
and the resulting

reactions.

What you say and do.

How well are you managing your emotions.

Are you allowing them to drive what you say think and do.

This isn't about putting your emotions into a box and sealing it closed.

It's about actively overseeing your reactions.

People with high self-management are able to make decisions knowingly and
willingly.

They are not impulsive.

They see choices and then decide.

More often than not what choices will benefit them and are connected to their goals
at work.

They are still expressing their emotions freely but based on the situation at hand.

Social awareness is your ability to recognize and respond to the needs of others.

Now some people at work express their needs openly such as I'm frustrated and I
need help.

Others may not be as explicit with their feelings.

You may have to learn how to read those people and then to ask questions.

People with high social awareness are observing and listening to people.

They are empathetic.

They are aware of the organizational dynamics at work.

The workplace politics that surround all of us all the time.

How well are you observing others.

What they say or don't say what their body language conveys the non-verbal cues and
how do you react

and return to what you're seeing from others.

How frequently to use empathy in your interactions.

Lastly relationship management involves considering your emotions as well as those

of others as you

develop and master relationships.

People skilled at Relationship Management build bonds with others They value
teamwork and collaboration

and they are able to handle conflict and productive and thoughtful ways.

Think of your role in some of those testy relationships at work.

How aware are you of how your emotions are affecting those relationships.

What about your productive relationships.

How are you behaving differently there versus in the harder ones.

As I said this E.U. model self-awareness self-management social awareness and

relationship management

is almost universal.

So what you learn in this course will be relevant as you continue your e q
development and we will be

exploring each of these four areas during our upcoming lectures and activities.

Learning about a cue will help you better understand when you're angry and why and
how your frustration

anger or stress affect you and others.

Now it's time to get a peek at what is happening in your brain in terms of
emotional intelligence.

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I want you to understand what is going on in your brain as you develop your IQ and
to do so.

I'm going to tell you a story.

So imagine you're driving on the freeway.

It's early on a Sunday morning and the roads are clear no traffic at all.

And in the back seat you have something or someone you love and cherish.

Children Grandma maybe your super cute dog.

And then out of nowhere a car speeds up and cuts you off.

It comes right in front of you.

Way too close for comfort and safety what is happening to your body as this car
cuts you off.

What are you feeling in that exact moment.

Perhaps you gasp and you tightly grip the steering wheel.

Your heart starts to race.

This is an example of fight or flight your brain sees this situation as a dangerous
one and reacts faster

than you can realize.

In these life and death situations we've been trained through evolution to react in
certain ways sometimes

without control it seems.

I will simplify in just a few words what happens your body gives you a burst of
energy as blood sugar

is released adrenaline is released and your heart starts pumping extra oxygen comes
to your brain to

help you make a good decision and to keep you pumped up cortisol is released to
keep you focused on

alert as your jaws clenched and your heart is pounding at the same time as you're
physically experiencing

these sensations.

Maybe you do some of the following things.

Do you honk and shake your fist at that driver and speed up.

Maybe you use a hand gesture maybe you swear.

This is a perfect example of EU hijacking.

Your emotions are making the decisions.

Some of them are smart.

Some of them are not so smart then as you look ahead of you the car that cut you
off is as far in the

distance.

You take your foot off the gas.

Your heart begins to slow down.

You take a CYA too and then you apologize to your loved ones in the back for
getting angry for cursing.

Sorry.

You realize that while this was really scary and while that driver is definitely a
jerk everyone is

OK.

This story is an example of Emotional Intelligence at play.

It illustrates what happens very quickly when emotions govern your decisions
without your approval this
is what is going on in your brain as that story unfolds.

You receive stimuli then your brain takes that information and send signals to your
body that something

bad is happening in your brain.

Your reactions are governed by its emotional center the amygdala the amygdala is
part of the limbic

system of your brain.

A group of structures that work with emotions and memory and motivation among other
things.

What is interesting and also really frustrating about IQ is that your brain can
make some emotional

decisions before it makes some logical ones.

The limbic part of your brain is directing your decisions to curse and shake your
fist at that driver.

Then the logical part of your brain the prefrontal cortex takes over.

This is the part of your brain that handles decision making and executive
functioning.

It's like the CEO of your brain after the initial emotional reaction the hijacking
logic is front of

mind.

Logic says that cars already far away.

That guy's an idiot forget about him.

Now you might be so angry that you ignore the logical part of your brain and you
allow the emotional

center to stay in the driver's seat so to speak evolution plays a trick on us

humans in such situations

because our brains are still wired to process and react with big emotions before
processing in a logical

fashion.

In other words you might react emotionally in tiny invisible ways or big bold ways
before reacting logically.

These two parts of your brain are sometimes at odds with each other.

It's like they're battling it out.

You feel what is going on.

You have an emotional and physical reaction to it before you can think logically
about it.

You can take this concept.

Those battling parts of your brain and when one wins over the other and think about
how it affects you

at work you're not necessarily in true life and death situations on a regular basis
at work.

Most if you have time to think more about what to do rather than allowing the
evolutionary factors to

make the decisions for you but your brain can still react the same way when you're
faced with a high

emotional situation.

For example who's that person who just drives you nuts at work.

Let's name her Alice.

Everything else does drives you crazy when you interact with her.

You react big.

That's the amygdala.

Those are your emotions in the driver's seat.

The last time you lashed out at Dallas you realized maybe a few seconds later or an
hour later or perhaps

the next day that that wasn't a smart thing to do.

You felt immature and you lost some credibility with her and with others logically
you know you need

to better understand and manage your emotions when working with Alice.

The next time she does something that irritates you.

You tell yourself to allow the conversations between the emotional and logical
centers of your brain

to happen to play out before you react with words or actions.

To recap keep the concept of these two parts of your brain top of mind which ones
controlling you the

most as you continue learning about each cue you'll see you have opportunities each
day to make conversations

between these two sections of your brain happen more often.

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I want to introduce you to my favorite EU accessory.
My emotional baggage purse.

This gets a lot of attention sometimes too much when people see the bag and comment
on it.

I always respond.

We all have it and we do.

We all have emotional baggage.

It's like some days and then heavy with rocks another day I want you to stop and
think about your emotional

baggage right now.

The things that you're carrying around everywhere you go this emotional baggage is
there with you preventing

you from being in the moment being present.

Being at work for this activity.

Download the worksheet attached to this lecture and select some of the rocks that
are your emotional

baggage.

I have a list there for you to choose from and you also have space to name some of
your own rocks.

The goal of the activity is for you to begin to identify some of the things taking
up space in your

mind.

These things are probably distracting you.

They weigh heavily on you.

Once you identify the issues or concerns that may be taking up space in your head
too much at times

you can begin to consider how to unpack some of your emotional baggage in the next
lecture we are going

to start to talk about how your brain sometimes loves to fixate on those rocks.

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Plastic your brain is plastic.

Scientists discovered this in the 1980s and it was a big breakthrough.

It was very surprising to learn that the brain can change.

The experts used to believe that connections in your brain were firmly established
at a young age and
that no new ones could be created.

Well now we know that's wrong.

The brain is plastic.

I'm talking about neuroplasticity.

What this means to you is that you can change your behavior.

You can train your brain your brain is flexible malleable changeable.

You can decide to make new connections literally build new synapses in your brain.

When you identify a reaction that you already have programmed in your head such as
the tendency to interrupt

someone with whom you are excited to speak with you can either number one decide if
you want to change

that reaction and number two decide what you would like to do instead.

This is in essence why IQ is so crucial of a skill to develop.

You can choose to identify the people places and situations that aggravate you and
decide to take a

new path.

So why you cannot make huge strides in increasing your IQ.

You can make big changes in your IQ or emotional intelligence.

You can practice new behaviors.

You can train yourself to change behaviors change the rocks you carry in your
emotional baggage.

Here's an example.

Let's say people using their phones during meetings really bothers you.

Here you are.

You're ready for a meeting you're taking notes.

You're listening to people joining discussions while your co-worker Heather never
seems to be in the

room with you.

She's always on her phone sometimes discreetly yet most the time not so discreet at
all.

You know from experience that when you see this behavior who is just fires you up
it really distracts

you.
Sometimes it bothers you so much that your mind is more on her and her phone versus
the meeting in this

situation.

This distraction is impacting how you operate at work.

Once you logically understand that your reactions are impacting you and your work
in a negative way.

You can decide to change.

This is where your brain being plastic is so important right now your brain has
learned that when you

see Heather in a meeting with her phone you feel this way.

Well you can teach yourself to react differently or even not at all.

You can rewire your brain.

Cut off some connections and make some new ones.

I want you to build the connection your brain that tells you something like this.

Yes there is Heather on her phone.

That's not your problem.

That's her problem.

Focus on the meeting.

Take a deep breath and focus on the meeting.

Now that's not an immediate change.

It will take time but noting this telling yourself when you feel a certain way to
do something other

than the reaction you've been trained to do that builds the new connections in your
brain.

It starts and reinforces the conversations between your amygdala that emotional
center of your brain

and the prefrontal cortex the logical center of your brain.

So remember your brain is plastic malleable changeable.

You can change your behavior.

You can change how you respond emotionally.

And that is high IQ and high IQ helps you feel better and also helps you as you
develop your career

and passions in the next lecture we'll talk about why IQ is such a huge asset at
work.
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IQ is good for business.

Companies are recognizing that helping employees learn about IQ helps raise
productivity profits and

employee engagement.

There is a treasure trove of research that supports the statement that IQ not IQ is
the top differentiator

at work.

I could bore you with details.

Yet that's no fun.

So here is just a sample of the facts around the importance of IQ 90 percent of top
performers are people

who have high IQ.

Now on the other end of the spectrum only 20 percent of bottom performers are high
in IQ.

Travis Bradbury and Jean graves are the authors of this research and their book
Emotional Intelligence

to point out as Bradbury says you can be a top performer without emotional
intelligence but the chances

are slim.

These two experts also evaluated IQ next to 33 additional workplace skills.

What did they learn Eakin was accountable for 58 percent of success in all kinds of
professions.

Wow what do hiring managers seek an employee's IQ.

CareerBuilder surveyed hiring managers and learned that 75 percent of them said
they'd want to promote

an employee with high emotional intelligence.

Fifty nine percent of them said they wouldn't hire a candidate who has high IQ but
low IQ.

Then there's the connection between financial success and IQ.

Research from the Carnegie Institute of Technology tells us that 85 percent of our
financial success

is the result of skills labeled human engineering skills like the ability to
negotiate communicate and

lead.
This research also states that just 15 percent of financial success is the result
of technical ability.

Finally I once you know about the work of a Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman from
this Israeli American

psychologist we learn that we would prefer as humans to do business with a person

we'd like and trust

versus an individual we don't like and trust.

This is true even if the person we don't like or trust as cheaper and better
products Relationship Management

one of the four quadrants of IQ is key.

I'm sure this information is convincing yet you will feel what IQ means for you
when you complete the

following activity.

Connecting your day to day work with how you can help.

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Research may be interesting and all but the true connection is deeper.

What is IQ going to do for you.

It's time to connect your behavior to what you know so far about IQ.

Why are you here.

What do you want to learn about IQ in order to help you at work.

Here are a few common situations that come to mind when people think of developing
their ee Q managing

up managing conflict giving feedback.

Let's take managing up for an example managing up is part of your role at work.

It's about creating a productive and healthy relationship with your manager.

He or she is there to coach and support you.

Many of us want to impress our managers so when there are times when we need to
manage up to actively

debate with our managers the vast majority of us sidestep it.

People tell me they worry about making their managers angry.

They stress about pushing back and think that their managers will see an opposing
view on a topic as

a rebuke.
That's false when you approach discussions as essential to identifying the best
course of action for

a team initiative you are working towards a true partnership.

Consider developing a cue to tackle possible unease around managing up.

Download the worksheet attached to this lecture and check off the list of items
that create your need

for each queue.

You will also be able to add in your own ideas to as you complete this activity.

Go back to the first one you did in lecture to the emotions that made you
uncomfortable at work.

Some of those emotions at work that make you feel uncomfortable are most likely
related to situations

where you can help you in the next section will discover ways to identify when you
have high and low

IQ and how to develop greater self-awareness and self-management.

In either instance.
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section3---------------------------------------------------------

To increase your IQ you need to learn how to identify it to understand how you feel
physically.

In principle this is an exercise in self-awareness.

So can you right now at this moment list how you feel when you're in the grips of
high or low IQ.

Ask yourself Do I know how I feel in the moment.

Recall my story about the car cutting you off on the freeway.

I give you some examples of how your body may be reacting to the shock of a close
call.

A possible car accident your amygdala the emotional center of your brain sends
messages out when an

emotion takes over.

Think about the reactions you have.

There could be signs of a possible EU hijacking at work.

What happens when your emotions take full control and tell your mind and body what
to do.

Leaving the prefrontal cortex out of the picture everyone may respond differently
but you may experience
some of the following.

How suddenly feeling hot or cold heart beating faster.

Starting to sweat clammy hands feeling queasy kind of sick to your stomach
breathing changing maybe

speeding up or slowing down.

Remember this is fight or flight and we all get hijacked at times.

The key is not to be hijacked often and everywhere and with everyone the signs of
AQ are different for

different people.

You can begin to listen to them as they happen to you.

So you may hear this and think wow I've been feeling some of these things and never
realized what was

going on.

Well you are on your way to raising your IQ by starting to read the signals
starting to listen to them.

Now let's discuss the reasons why these things are happening to you.

Once you begin to note how you're feeling.

The second part of this exercise in self-awareness is to connect the feeling with
the reason or cause.

Now your body may feel it before you actually get it before you realize what's
going on.

Yet when you were able to feel a physical sign of it you will become better at
understanding what is

happening and why.

For example perhaps one day at work you notice you are sweating who are sweating a
lot.

Now that air conditioning is working so that's not the issue and you're not wearing
a heavy sweater

during summer and you didn't take a run during lunch.

Nice try.

So what exactly is going on in this situation.

Ask yourself questions such as these what's on your mind today.

List all the things all of them.

What's on your calendar.

What meetings are coming up once with people that you perhaps don't enjoy spending
time with.

What's different about today than yesterday or a day last week when your
environment seemed the same.

Yet you weren't sweating.

Is there a big project coming up and you're behind.

Is there a nasty work trip on the calendar for next week and you're not looking
forward to that 10 hour

flight in coach.

You feel a certain way because of an emotional reaction to something or someone

taking the step from.

I feel this way too.

This is what's occupying my mind is a huge leap forward in your Q development.

You then become self aware of what you were feeling and why the people places
events times of the day

that create a certain emotional reaction.

So you're starting to read your body which is fabulous.

Now you need to write down the situations that make you feel one way or another.

These could even be pet peeves behaviors that co-workers use to annoy you.

Yet honestly don't greatly impact your productivity such as chewing with mouths
open eating super smelly

food at their desks pretty often someone cutting you off in line getting into the
elevator to get coffee

and so forth.

E Q can certainly help you manage your reactions to your pet peeves.

Now in my opinion using e q only to tackle co-workers pet peeves is short sighted.

You'll most likely always be working or living with another person's irritating
habits using e q to

manager reactions helps you handle work stress.

Yet the big ticket the golden ticket is to use Q to better understand how your own
productivity and

workplace engagement are being shaped by your emotional reactions.

I'm going to dig deeper into this topic in our next lecture.

As you identify the things that drive you nuts the buttons people push e q plays a
valuable role here.

Think of the situations that drive you nuts.

The meetings that start late the colleagues who are not prepared.

Think of those folks at work who really push your buttons to change your IQ.

You need to start with information about the people places and times of the day and
so forth that cause

you to respond in ways that are ineffective or unproductive.

What pushes your buttons what provokes you creates a strong emotional reaction.

Is it a silent or covert reaction you're fuming on the inside but you're smiling on
the outside.

Or is it a loud one having an expression on your face that says it all.

Once you identify and become self-aware of your buttons you can begin to manage
them.

You'll remember that self-awareness and self-management are the first two parts of
the EU model.

So what's a button you ask.

Here are some examples of my buttons and what they mean.

When people arrive late to meetings and don't acknowledge their tardiness.

People who are in a super rush to talk to me mean it's an emergency and please
please please make time

for me.

And then they are missing in action.

They don't respond to any of my responses to them.

Someone who sends me a calendar invitation without asking me if the time or day
works for these three

buttons they all have the same reason why they bother me.

To me they show a disregard for my time.

They say to me I am important and Lyla you were not.

Your time is not valuable.

I once had an appointment with a dentist and she was 45 minutes late.

Her staff told me she was busy with a family emergency.

OK happens to all of us including me.

I get it.
Then she came into the office.

I saw walk in and started to chit chat with a salesperson who had just arrived.

They talked for 10 minutes.

I'm still in the waiting room.

Then she disappeared into her office and I sat another five minutes.

I then walked up to reception and told them I felt I wasn't being valued as a
client.

That my time was just as important as theirs.

And I walked out higher low example of a queue on my part not sure but did I ever
go back to that dentist.

No never.

This disregard for others the people we all share physical space with sometimes in
very tight quarters.

Wow that can really get to me.

Now you can't claim that everything pushes your buttons.

You need to identify the things people and places that aggravate you and cause you
to have an unproductive

and unplanned reaction.

For instance you're sitting at your desk headphones on working hard on a deadline.

It feels as if you've been distracted all morning by several people.

Thanks open workspace.

Buttons are being pushed all day and then one thing leads to another and the very
next person who pushes

any of your buttons receives the full force of your fury not good.

Now the main button being pushed is how you don't like being under pressure having
a deadline to reach

but a chain of events is what caused you to unload unfairly on someone.

Buttons can be people places events situations times of the day and emotions that
make us feel uncomfortable.

Think back to our first activity.

If you don't begin to identify your buttons they may get pushed often attached to
this lecture is a

handy checklist you can use to identify your buttons.

Some people push your buttons on purpose but that isn't what we're talking about.

We are talking about what you can control your reactions to others your reactions
to situations.

We will pull things together now in our next lecture.

When you complete an exercise titled feel it and place it and get it.

In the previous lectures you learn to identify how your body is feeling and to
consider what the cause

of the feelings may be.

Let's now apply some of what you've learned.

Time to connect the dots between how you are feeling and why download the activity
attached to this

lecture titled feel it.

Place it and get it and I'll walk you through it.

There are three steps in this exercise.

First I want you to review the checklist to determine where in your body you are
feeling stress anxiety

excitement and so forth.

This is the feel it part of the exercise.

I have examples there for you and some planks.

If you want to insert your own unique reactions.

Second I want you to connect the dots by considering the situation you find
yourself in.

When you get sweaty your mouth is parched you feel lightheaded or so forth.

This is the place it part of the exercise.

These are your buttons buttons that when they're pushed they bother you.

And then for the third and final step.

Think about and describe why you feel a certain way in a certain situation.

For example your mouth is parched when you need to have a tough conversation with a
peer.

You feel that way because you don't like having tough conversations you are afraid
you are hurting someone's

feelings.

Hopefully now you are thinking Ah now I get it feel it.

Place it.

Get it.

Once you get it you are on your way to self management understanding how to manage
your cue and play

up or down some of your emotional reactions.

You create the connection between the limbic and logical parts of your brain and
get them talking more

often.

Remember our very first exercise I asked you to list the emotions that make you
feel uncomfortable.

Go back to that exercise the emotions you listed will give you ideas of the people
or situations that

make you feel uncomfortable.

This is where your brain being plastic comes into play a lot.

You would be building new synapses You were rewiring by feeling what is going on.

Knowing where and getting the why.

Now what if you stopped your learning right now.

You didn't go any farther in your IQ development.

That would be the ultimate mistake to avoid.

Besides that one as it is so obvious.

I want to share with you five other pitfalls to avoid.

Number one becoming too cautious about showing your emotions.

Sometimes my executive coaching clients once they begin to develop their self-
awareness and self-management

become more cautious about displaying their feelings.

They assume that having high IQ means lowering emotional reactions or limiting
feelings.

That's false.

Remember you are a human not a robot.

Emotions can be managed not bottled up.

Number two worrying about offending people.

I want people to be aware of what they say and how it lands.

You can't claim what you intended when you put your foot in your mouth as the
regular excuse when you

hurt or offend people but at the same time e q leads you to a deeper consideration
of what you want

to express with your words emotions and actions.

Don't avoid giving solid thoughtful constructive feedback because you are cautious
of hurting someone

else's feelings.

Number three avoiding risks.

Research tells us that as we gain more experience grow older our brains approach
risk taking differently

and we may take fewer risks as a result.

I see your development of q as a way for you to learn more about yourself and your
role at work and

that self-awareness can lead to seeing more opportunities to collaborate and try
new things.

Number four IQ is the solution to everything.

I wish this were the case but it's not easy.

Q Isn't the answer to all of your challenges at work.

I'm sure you're aware of some projects that require hard skills right now more than
soft skills.

For example IQ won't help you grow your programming skills so be sure to view your
professional development

as a balance of hard and soft skills.

Fifth and final one failing to ask people to support you.

Don't keep your IQ progress a secret.

There is no stigma about this topic.

I guarantee you that many of your co-workers and certainly leaders at your company
welcome a discussion

around you.

Q They are most likely thinking about how to raise their own IQ as well.

Remember that emotional intelligence is the leading indicator of success at work.

So why not share your interest and ask for support as you build it.

If you keep these pitfalls in mind your IQ will steadily develop.

We've talked a lot about how you can develop your own personal IQ by being more
self-aware of your emotions

and their causes and managing your reactions to them.

Now let's talk about how you can develop your IQ externally specifically with
people in the workplace

by cultivating your social awareness and relationship management.

----------------------------------------------------section
4------------------------------------------------------------------
As you learn more about your own self-awareness and self-management it becomes time
to look around you.

The third part of the EU model is social awareness paying closer attention to
others.

You'll remember that social awareness is your ability to observe what others are
saying with their words

and with their bodies and to examine how it affects you.

Think about being at work.

It's a normal day.

As normal as any day can be as you go about your day settling at your desk
attending meetings getting

coffee lunch and so forth.

Start watching and listening.

Think of the people who freely share their emotions but not in an excessive way.

Perhaps a co-worker who shares his frustration with you yet soon after that he also
states what he is

going to do to solve the challenges he is facing.

That's an example of high IQ as you keep observing.

Is there anyone there who complains incessantly about everything.

Geez this is so stupid.

Can you believe the idiot in charge of that project out of computer again.

That would be an example of low IQ.

Be sure to observe non-verbal signals as well as what people are saying and doing
some non-verbal gestures

are easy to spot other signs like sighing rolling of eyes shrugs are more subtle.

Keep an eye out for them.

The goal is not to pick out every piece of low IQ around you in order to criticize
or market the goals
to better see how you are being affected by it and how others are impacted too.

Here is an example of two co-workers one with high IQ and one with low you observe
two of your peers

discussing a document.

One of them is passionately involved in her position.

She is expressive with her hands but not in a way that threatens or intimidates her
co-worker.

She isn't interrupting and her vocal tone is even not too loud not too soft.

Her facial expressions are active but not exaggerated.

This is somebody with high IQ.

Spend more time observing this co-worker.

Also if she is open to it take her out for coffee and ask her some questions.

Ask her to share how she self manages at work.

She doesn't have to teach her coach you just learning her story will help you.

Here's another example.

This person looks frustrated.

Most of the time he has his arms tightly folded across his chest.

He is it making a lot of eye contact.

He is shaking his head very slowly back and forth.

He isn't saying much with his mouth but his body is showing his peers and anyone
else around him that

he's not happy.

He admits some slow drawn out sighs fairly often.

This is somebody with low IQ.

Now don't ignore this co-worker as he will most likely continue to provide you and
the rest of the team

floor.

Maybe even the entire company with real person examples of what not to do when
developing your IQ.

So the first part of strong social awareness involves watching and listening to
others.

The second part is learning more about the people you work with so you can better
understand how to
shift your approaches to partnering with them.

You learn what people respond to and what they don't.

You learn what they like and what they appreciate and what they don't enjoy.

You don't need to have a different or unique approach for every single person you
work with.

Instead you are paying more attention to their signals.

They are sending them all the time all day long.

After a while you will be able to read these people as if you're in a high stakes
poker game.

It's like an unwritten quick reference card with tips about each of the people you
work with and their

buttons.

Let's now turn to some additional examples of high and low IQ that you can be on
the lookout for.

Here are some of the common signs of low IQ I've seen in workplaces around the
world.

How many are you guilty of number one.

Emotional outbursts sudden outbursts that are not a regular occurrence or a trend
in this person's behavior.

Number two passive aggressive behavior.

Someone who is filled with frustration on the inside yet avoids confrontation or
honest expression of

feelings.

Someone whose favorite phrases include Don't worry about me I'm fine not angry at
all.

And whatever.

Number three allowing small things to cause big reactions.

Someone who gets stressed easily and can blow some things out of proportion no for
failing to ask how

others feel.

Even when other people show emotions in their faces their bodies and in non verbals
5 inability to read

social cues from others doesn't take the time to read or pay attention to some
signals.

Number six self centeredness.

It's all about him or her all the time.

Number seven.

Lack of empathy.

Someone who is unable to understand and share the emotions of others.

Number eight.

Lack of emotion avoids showing their feelings at any time.

Stoic number 9.

Lack of self-awareness.

Someone who doesn't know his or her buttons has no idea what sets them off number
10.

Blaming others for his or her mistakes.

Then here are the examples of the high IQ I see in executives managers and team
members.

I hope your peers see some of this in you.

No one asking questions for clarity when receiving criticism.

This person doesn't shoot the messenger but instead ask for more information.

Number two listening 100 percent and listening before speaking.

Number three the ability to apologize without being nudged to do so.

Wow what a rarity that is today.

Number for showing passion frustration anxiety the full range of emotions.

Yet in an appropriate manner.

Also this person doesn't direct those emotions at one individual in a personal way.

Number five learning people with high IQ are looking for ways to improve to learn.

Number six sharing praise and criticism openly and with details.

Number seven demonstrating empathy reading emotions and relating to them.

Number eight being assertive but not aggressive.

Number nine.

Making mistakes and freely admitting it.

Wow that's a huge sign of high IQ.

Number 10 valuing the goals of the team and the organization above his or her own.
This is a great checklist for you to review as you continue your CQ development and
it's not complete.

You can probably think of additional signs of high and low IQ to add in and use to
observe your own

behavior.

You're now prepped for our next activity on spotting IQ in your workplace.

Time to use some of what you have learned about spotting IQ at work.

Download the worksheet attached to this lecture.

It's titled spot it.

I want you to take time to identify the signs of high and low IQ in your coworkers
and in your manager.

Read through the checklists and select the behaviors you were spotting as you work
on social awareness.

Then list the people you want to learn from the people who demonstrate high IQ.

Also secretly or at least don't leave this list laying on your desk.

List the people who tend to consistently demonstrate low IQ.

You can learn a lot from discreetly paying attention to them.

They may also be people you need to get to know relationships to build a final
thought before you start

this exercise.

You may also see some of your own behaviors mirrored in others both high and low
IQ.

Consider how those behaviors look in others.

You can learn a lot there as well.

The concept of relationship management seems like the Holy Grail to a lot of us.

It's mysterious it's elusive and we're searching for it.

If we can just figure out what we need to do to make that difficult relationship
easier.

Well work would be amazing.

I get it.

I routinely coach individuals and teams that struggle to build relationships.

People are grouped together for projects sometimes somewhat randomly and we just
assume that working
at the same company leads to collaboration.

But working next to each other or with each other doesn't equal a relationship or a
work partnership.

Let's squeeze in a short activity around.

Q And your work relationships so you can begin to take everything you've learned so
far and apply it

to how you collaborate at work before you start this activity.

Here is a reminder on what relationship management is relationship management is

your understanding

of your emotions and how you use that ability to manage interactions with others in
a manner that leads

to success for both sides or parties.

People skilled at Relationship Management build bonds with each other.

They value teamwork and collaboration and they are able to handle conflict in
productive and thoughtful

ways.

To me I describe a productive relationship.

When I see or experience these three things clarity you understand your role
communication.

You have a regular routine and methods to communicate.

Collaboration you feel your expertise is valued and encouraged.

It's a partnership.

Ready to review some work relationships.

Download the worksheet attached to this lecture and consider these questions.

List the relationships that fuel fluid.

They're easy.

They're productive and collaborative.

Why would feels easy about them.

Then list the relationships that are challenging.

They can include people you avoid or dread working with.

How aware are you of how your emotions are affecting those relationships.

Select one relationship from each list and consider what you need to do your
actions.
This is about you not about the other person to increase the clarity communication
and collaboration

of the relationship.

You'll see I have an example for you on the worksheet as you get ready to complete
the activity.

I want you to keep in mind that using equal work to build relationships doesn't
mean that you have to

get along.

Be friends.

Have a beer together.

The goal isn't to fix every single relationship.

The goal isn't to be friends with everyone.

Yet having a high Relationship Management Q entails considering your point of view
and that of the other

individual or the group.

It's a balancing act and the scale you're using to judge on how you're doing is
whether each party is

contributing to the larger agreed upon goal of the company.

Understanding your emotions and those of others is essential in managing

collaborative workplace relationships.

-------------------------------------------------------section
5---------------------------------------------------
OK let's talk action plan.

I'll be honest with you.

This is usually where the learning stops completely.

For many people as you continue to grow your emotional intelligence.

The easiest thing to do is to say to yourself.

This was interesting.

I learned something I'll create an action plan next week and then nothing happens.

You don't do anything.

You have great intentions but life gets in the way.

Let's change that today.

A lot of your action plan is already completed in previous activities.

You just need to put it together.

This action plan is short and sweet.

Download the worksheet attach this lecture and answer these questions first one.

What is the most important thing you learned in this course.

Second what are the two buttons you will be in tune with next week.

Start with just these two buttons.

These are the two people places situations or things that you need to be more self
aware of and self

manage more third and final one who at work can hold you accountable who can be
your IQ buddy.

This is someone you trust to give you positive and constructive criticism around
your IQ development.

Write down the name of the person and also list what you want them to observe in
your behavior.

It's probably related to one of the buttons you listed.

Now in live workshops people are almost always exhausted by the time they get to
the end to their action

planning.

I get it.

Don't allow course fatigue to get to you.

Don't skip this step.

Congratulations on finishing this course on emotional intelligence.

I hope you have enjoyed yourself and have learned tangible information to continue
to grow your IQ.

You've learned what IQ is and why it's important for your work and for yourself.

You've worked through steps to develop your own IQ identifying your emotions
connecting them to causes

and learning to manage them.

We then talked about how IQ shows up in the workplace.

You now know how to use social awareness to observe high and low IQ and others and
to learn from those

observations and how each cue can help you cultivate better workplace
relationships.

You now also have an action plan to continue your e q development.

As I said in our introduction I have witnessed amazing progress with leaders and
teams who commit to

better understanding how logic and emotions collide at work.

I want that for you and your company.

Pause and listen to your body and connect the emotional and logical centers of your
brain.

Daniel Goleman the foremost expert of IQ expresses it so well in this quotation in

a very real sense.

We have two minds one that thinks and one that feels remember high IQ doesn't mean
you don't show emotions.

Instead be purposeful with emotions.

The next step is up to you.

Keep working on it share with your colleagues the changes in IQ you want to make.

Ask them to help keep you honest.

I hope you enjoyed the course and I hope it has been a five star experience.

Please review the course and let me know what you think.

I hope you will continue developing your E Q Your ability to identify and
understand your emotions and

how they impact you at work.

As you think about what you're doing immediately after this course I want you to
think about emojis.

All the images on your phone, the ones you use often.

What's your emoji in terms of EQ?

What are you known for?

How do you show your feelings at work?

If people could assign an emoji for you what would it be?

How would they characterize the ways in which you demonstrate your emotions with
your eyes, your voice,

your body, your feelings. As you raise your self-awareness and self-management,

think about the faces that you're showing people. How do you carry yourself around
the office, in meetings

and during one on ones? As you think about your EQ emojis (and you can have
several)

remember one of the pitfalls I mentioned, the things to avoid when developing EQ:
showing no emotions
at all.

So what are your current emojis and what do you want them to be?

It doesn't have to be a grinning face everyday or LOL all the time, but if you're
emoji is disgusted

or neutral or confused most days then you have some EQ work to do my friend.

I don't want you to be the person who is hard to read because you hesitate to
demonstrate your feelings

emotionally.

Instead be aware of all the faces you show.

Be human.

Be yourself with higher emotional intelligence.

----------------------------------------------------------------course 1
end--------------------------------------------------

Welcome!

This is Sorin, and you are inside the Performance Under

Pressure course.

This is the second part of a series of three courses and

focuses on Taking Action.

And, in this course, you are going to learn not only how to

take action under pressure, but also how to avoid over-thinking

and over-confidence, and understand what exactly the

challenge is.

Acting effectively in high-pressure situations is not

easy.

Over-confidence can lead to poor judgment,

and over-thinking the situation can lead to paralysis.

Also, your perception may become clouded by negative thoughts and

emotions in times of pressure.

But it's exactly at these times that you need to perceive the

challenges most clearly so that you can set appropriate goals

and take effective action to achieve them.

This course sets out some principles to help you avoid the

dangers of overconfidence and overthinking,

which can impair your performance when under pressure.

It then teaches a technique for clarifying your perceptions in

such situations and creating an action plan to optimize your

performance under pressure.

Professionals who want to develop their abilities to

manage the stress that comes with working under pressure,

and those who want to develop or refine their skills for

performing under pressure will benefit from this course.

After completing this topic, you will be able to: avoid

over-analysis and over-confidence in high-pressure

situations, understand the challenge in a high-pressure

situation from emotional reactions,

manage automatic thoughts to optimize perceptions in

high-pressure situations, use appropriate steps in the process

of taking action in a high-pressure situation,

and take action in pressure situations to match every

challenge.

So, thank you for taking this course.

Next you are going to have a short course overview,

followed by a video on how to use Udemy for a better learning

experience.

And after, you are going to learn how to understand a

challenge resulted from a pressure situation,

how to plan for action and how to act appropriately.

That's it for now.

See you on the course!

As promised we are not going to directly discuss section by

section the topics included in this course.

First a course overview, and a short - very short reminder of

the previous course from this series.

The previous course from this series dealt with The Right

Attitude as the starting point of achieving Performance Under

Pressure.

This course helps you understand the events and situations that

cause you to feel pressure.

It explains how you can understand your reaction to

pressure, and how excessive stress can impair your

performance.

And, finally, it covers the principles for managing your

attitude so that you stay in control and maintain a

success-oriented mentality.

Now, to shift from attitude to actions,

have you ever been under pressure to give an important

presentation, or impress an important client,

only to perform below your abilities?

Many people struggle to give their best when it counts the

most.

This is largely because of how pressure influences their

thinking and reactions.

Pressure commonly leads people to two kinds of behavior:

over-confidence, which can lead to poor judgment,

and over-analysis, which can lead to paralysis.

To be successful under pressure, it's important to learn to avoid

these temptations, and that starts with learning how

pressure influences your thinking.

People's perception of a situation or challenge can be

clouded by negative thoughts that are driven by emotions.

However, it's at these times that you need to think most

clearly.

To perform effectively under pressure,

it's important to be able to recognize the real challenge

presented by a situation, and to have a strategy in place to take

effective action.

This course outlines some ways that you can avoid the behavior

associated with over-confidence and over-analysis.

Then some principles for defining the true challenge of a

situation are laid out, including learning how your

thoughts can be distorted, and how to revise these thoughts.

Finally, a method for taking effective action in

high-pressure situations is outlined,

along with opportunities to practice that action.

But, we are going to see all in detail throughout the course.

You will have examples and exercises to practice,

and even a short optional course project if interested.

This will help you understand and get you ready to apply your

newly acquired or reinforced knowledge and skills.

Next, as promised, something for a better learning experience.

For a better learning experience change your view settings to HD.

Depending on your internet connection the quality of your

video lesson should be better on your playing device.

This course includes closed captions,

at least in English.

So, if you want to watch videos quietly or defeat noise it's a

good idea to turn them on.

Or, maybe is just easier for you to take video lessons if you

also see the subtitles.

It would be also a good idea to check for additional resources

for every video lesson.

Most of the time an audio version will be available and a

pdf presentation.

Some documents will be posted as an independent lesson,

but the others will have learning aids in the resources

section.

Use the discussion board for questions and to invite our

student colleagues to share personal experiences.

Interaction will improve your learning.

And, I will be here to help.

It might not be easy to be the first one to ask a question or

make a comment, I know.

But, I will take care of it and start a discussion.

If you are on a computer, or iPad type device you can also

take notes.

I'm not saying you should.

But, this is also very helpful to improve retention,

and you will find an easy reference if you need to revisit

the course.

Udemy offers you the option and you will see by yourself that

note taking while watching video lectures is highly effective.

There will be some exercises to complement end of section

quizzes.

For some it would help to stop the video for one or two minutes

and try to respond before continuing.

Every time I will give the correct answer so you can

compare.

Of course you can just continue without stopping,

but it's good if you try your hand on the question before
comparing.

It might be that, for some exercises,

you will need more time and to work on a template.

I use this for skill development,

and I believe in practice.

Most of the time you learn more from this than from my

presentation, so take your time and do it as guided.

You are the client, so you have the right to make suggestions

and to ask for more.

I know you feel the need to be nice and appreciate the effort.

But, please if you need something related to the course

feel free to ask.

I will be here to respond.

At the end of the course a review would be very much

appreciated.

You are not required of course but,

it helps me improve the course and it helps other potential

students to make a choice.

For technical issues I might help,

if not there is Udemy Technical Support.

Whatever is not working, please write me or Udemy.

This is it for now.

Happy learning and see you in the course!

------------------------------------------------------
section2----------------------------------------------------
Some people excel under pressure,

while others struggle.

In high-pressure situations, some people tend to adopt one of

two kinds of behavior: over-thinking or

over-confidence.

People who succeed when under pressure are often better at

avoiding, or balancing, these tendencies.

To perform well under pressure you need to think sufficiently

about what needs to be done, but not fall into the trap of

overthinking your performance.

Similarly, you should have confidence in your abilities and

knowledge, but not to the point where your arrogance impairs

your judgment.

Overthinking can lead to a sense of paralysis - becoming so

concerned about the details and outcomes of the situation that

you don't know where to begin.

In high-pressure situations, some people tend to question

their ability to perform.

Others may try to control every variable.

In either case, the focus is shifted away from what needs to

be accomplished and toward the performance.

This focus on performance can cause people to perform below

their ability.

For example, Lenore works for an investment firm and has recently

been granted control of her first account.

Her first assignment in this new role is to do a risk analysis of

an important client's portfolio.

Wanting to impress her boss, Lenore researches every

conceivable variable of the client's portfolio.

She's pleased to find a large volume of information,

which she's sure will improve the accuracy of her report.

Eventually, however, it begins to seem that each additional

source she consults makes her less certain of her final

analysis.

Finally, Lenore is surrounded by so much information that she

becomes totally paralyzed and isn't able to finish the report

on time.

To avoid overthinking in high-pressure situations,

you can use several strategies.

First, stay focused on what you're trying to achieve.

Second, try to just do what you do.

Third, strive for progress instead of perfection.

Fourth, set a time limit for your task and stick to it.

And fifth, try to break the task down into smaller,

simpler tasks.

Staying focused on what you're trying to achieve,

rather than on the details of your performance,

is an effective way to avoid overthinking.

For example, Clarice needs to give a presentation.

She's anxious because it will influence an important decision.

Though she has given many presentations in the past,

she can't help but worry that she might fail.

However, Clarice resists this type of thinking and instead

focuses on her previous successes,

which helps her to do the best job she can.

Just doing what you do, rather than dwelling on what else you

could or should do, can help you perform under pressure.

Consider Caesar, who is negotiating the sale of a

property.

He's performed well in several similar transactions in the

past, but has started to doubt his negotiation strategy this

time.

However, he knows that he has succeeded with this strategy in

the past and can rely on it.

By focusing on what he knows he can do,

Caesar retains a sense of confidence and avoids

self-doubt.

When you're under pressure, try focusing your attention on

making progress rather than achieving perfection.

When Angela started awarding contracts to bidding firms,

she spent too long trying to find the perfect one.

Eventually, she realized that none of the firms were perfect

and she made a decision after reviewing each proposal once.

Setting a time limit on what you need to accomplish can help you

to take action in pressured situations.

As a new architect, Andrew spent an incredible amount of overtime

ensuring his first projects were perfect.

While his commitment was appreciated,

his superiors were concerned that he was exhausting himself.

They suggested he set time limits.

Andrew now writes a schedule for each task in a project.

This has helped him to keep moving on to the next task,

which has increased his overall output without compromising his

standards of excellence.

To avoid over-analysis, try breaking your task down into

smaller, more manageable ones.

For example, Nina was reviewing a rights contract for an

important client.

It was more detailed than those she'd worked on in the past and

she became anxious that she couldn't do it.

Then she tried thinking of the contract as a cluster of terms

and agreements, with which she was already familiar.

Looking at the contract like this,

Nina was able to work through each item with confidence.

Which examples describe actions you can take to avoid

over-analysis in high-pressure situations?

Options: 1 - You commit to finishing the proposal by the

end of next Monday.

2 - You decide to submit your proposal since it's good enough,

if not perfect.

3 - You divide the quarterly report into an assessment of

each of the five departments, completing each one before

moving on to the next.

4 - You list each alternative approach you considered for the

budget review in case your boss condemns the one you chose.

5 - You detail the tasks involved in your review of

company policies to ensure your success.

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

Setting a time limit for what needs to be done is an effective

way to move from analysis to action.

Option 2: This option is correct.

Aiming for progress and not perfection is important to

ensure continued output, especially if you have a

tendency to overanalyze.

Option 3: This option is correct.

Breaking a complicated task into more manageable tasks is

effective for avoiding over-analysis.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

To avoid over-analysis, you should focus on what you do,

rather than on what you could, would,

or should do.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

You should instead stay focused on what you're trying to

achieve, rather than on the details of your performance.

So, don't overanalyze, take action.

Next, learn more about not going on the opposite side,

and managing the potential over-confidence situations.

Overconfidence is the second tendency that some people have

in high-pressure scenarios.

Having a sense of confidence about yourself and your

abilities is important.

However, overconfidence can lead to failure.

Overconfidence leads people to underestimate challenges and

fail to ask whether their skills,

experience, and knowledge are sufficient to accomplish the

task at hand.

An example of an overconfident response is refusing to consider

alternatives to opinions and decisions.

Because overconfident employees may act brashly,

the consequences of their actions can be more damaging

than those caused by overthinking.

This is because their mistakes tend to be more elaborate,

and so require far more time and effort to resolve.

Arrogance, if left unchecked, can lead to complacency.

For example, you may become convinced that you no longer

make trivial mistakes.

Such a mindset makes it easy for you to miss simple errors in

your work.

Overconfidence can prevent you from seeking the help you may

require to meet a given objective or achieve a set

standard.

This can lead you to repeat mistakes or get behind in your

work.
Just as over-thinking results in too much attention being paid to

the possibility of failure, overconfidence often leads to

too much focus on the expected rewards of success.

In both cases, your focus is drawn away from the task at

hand, and directed to the outcome of the situation

instead.

Take Dwayne, for example.

He was recently promoted to the position of editor at a

publishing house.

Given an important manuscript as his first task,

he began to go through it, not only making corrections,

but also rewriting large sections that he felt were

poorly researched and argued.

Dwayne thought he'd been given too easy a task to begin with,

but that he'd improved it with his superior understanding of

the subject matter.

While working on the manuscript, Dwayne was offered help by

experienced editors who remembered being bogged down by

their first projects.

But Dwayne refused assistance.

He was so convinced of his skills that Dwayne felt he

didn't need help to impress his superiors.

However, when the manuscript's author read Dwayne's changes,

he was offended.

Dwayne hadn't realized that the author was an expert in the

field and that his own grasp of the material was elementary in

contrast to the author.

He was so focused on his own ability and ambition to impress

that he didn't bother to check who the author was.

You can use several techniques to avoid overconfidence in

high-pressure situations.

First, stay humble and accountable.

Second, understand that good decision-making requires you to

know your limits.

Third, make sure that you learn from your previous mistakes.

Fourth, be realistic about the time and effort needed to

complete tasks.

And fifth, make it a habit to think ahead.

To guard against overconfidence, make an effort to stay humble

and accountable.

Consider Mark, who quickly completed what he thought was a

routine budget analysis.

However, his results differed from those expected.

Rather than assume he was correct,

he noted the disparity, and asked a coworker for help.

By admitting that he'd underestimated the challenge,

they solved the problem together,

and Mark learned to be more careful in the future.

Good decision-making requires that you know the limits of your

abilities and your knowledge.

For example, once doubtful of his team's solution,

Brian reluctantly admitted he didn't share their technical

understanding of the issue.

Instead of arguing with them and asserting his authority,

Brian asked his team to help him understand the issue.

In this way, they reached an effective solution together.

When things go wrong, it's important to analyze what went

wrong and why so you can learn from your mistakes.

As an example, a few weeks ago, Susan made a scheduling error

that resulted in several missed deadlines.

Though she'd been doing the scheduling for years,

Susan took the time to recognize how the problem occurred.

Then she created a checklist that included what she learned

so she wouldn't repeat the same mistake.

Underestimating challenges can lead to costly errors.

Aim to be realistic about the time and effort required for a

task to avoid this.

Take Thomas, who needed to update an office's computer

systems.

Though he'd done similar jobs in the past,

he still took care to budget his time realistically.

Thomas gave himself extra time, which enabled him to solve an

unforeseen problem while staying on schedule.

Thinking ahead and asking what might go wrong is a helpful way

to avoid errors due to overconfidence.

For example, Luanne was leading a team of accountants through an

important audit of a company.

She began by considering what potential problems could arise.

What if she were to lose any of her staff during this busy time?

To ensure that work wouldn't be lost in such a scenario,

she compiled a list of consultants that she could hire

if this happened.

Which examples describe effective ways to avoid being

overconfident in high-pressure situations?

Options: 1 - You recognize that the figures you've been given

may be flawed and distort your findings.

2 - You think you'll be able to complete a routine task in four

days, but allow yourself a week in case of unexpected delays.

3 - You plan to consult an expert on an area which you're

somewhat, but not completely, familiar with.

4 - You reaffirm that a mistake was made,

but that you weren't to blame for your involvement.

5.

You move forward from mistakes by forgetting about them and

focusing on success.

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

Thinking ahead about potential problems is a good way to keep

yourself from acting overconfidently under pressure.

Option 2: This option is correct.

Being realistic about time and effort required is an important

way to stave off overconfident tendencies.

Option 3: This option is correct.

Understanding your limits and acknowledging the need for help

is important for guarding against overconfidence.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

Part of avoiding overconfidence is being accountable when

mistakes are made, and being humble.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

It's important that you learn from your mistakes so as not to

repeat them.

This is a good way to keep from being overconfident.

When under pressure, people may tend to overthink the situation,

or react with overconfidence.

Each type of behavior has undesirable results.

To avoid overthinking situations,

you should try to stay focused on what you're doing and just do

what you do.

Remember to strive for progress and not perfection,

and try to set a time limit for what needs to be done.

Finally, try to break tasks into smaller ones that are more

manageable.

To resist the potentially damaging consequences of

overconfidence, stay humble and accountable.

Remember that good decision-making requires that

you understand your limits.

Make an effort to learn from your previous mistakes and stay

realistic about the time and effort a task will take.

Finally, get into the habit of thinking ahead about what may go

wrong, and plan for these possibilities.

Next, an exercise on countering overthinking.

If you need help with this please don't hesitate to ask.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------SECTION
3-----------------------------

We are going to start this lecture with an example.

Consider Alfred, a technology researcher with an electronics

company.

His boss asked him to give a presentation about his current

research to the company's executive board.

Whether Alfred sees this as an exciting opportunity or as an

incitement of anxiety largely depends on how he deals with

pressured situations.

The stress you feel in a situation can be influenced by

how you interpret the situation.

When you perceive a situation negatively,

you may perform below your ability.

To help you perceive a situation more clearly,

you can follow a four-step method.

First, notice automatic thoughts.

Second, identify distortions.

Third, question whether there's evidence for these thoughts.

And fourth, revise these thoughts,

and apply more constructive interpretations.

The first step is to notice automatic thoughts.

If your thoughts are untrue, negative,

or contrary to your best interests,

they may have negative consequences.

Many thoughts are unconscious and automatic.

These thoughts — such as hypertension and

hyperventilation — that can make you more susceptible to

negative reactions.

Learning to recognize how thoughts are distorted can help

improve your performance under pressure.

For example, if you're convinced that your teammate is subverting

your performance, you're likely to waste energy looking for

evidence of this instead of focusing on doing your best

work.

The second step for improving how you look at a situation is

to identify distortions.

There are several types of thought distortion that often

occur when you're under pressure.

First is the tendency to view situations in terms of all or

nothing, through overgeneralization.

Second is having a negative bias.

Third is being prone to emotive reasoning.

Fourth is engaging in exaggeration.

And fifth is the tendency to wrongly place blame on others,

or on yourself.

All or nothing thinking is characterized by thinking in

terms of absolutes, such as "always,

"never," or "every," or "none."

This thinking can make situations seem hopeless.

For example, Jesse's boss told him and his team that their

deadline had been moved up a week.

Jesse's immediate reaction was that they'd never get the

project done on time while fulfilling their other

commitments.

They'd have to drop everything and focus on this one task,

but fail to deliver their other tasks on time.

By viewing the moved deadline as so burdensome and impossible,

Jesse kept himself from finding a way to pull everyone together

to succeed.

A negative bias shifts your focus to the negative,

excluding the positive, and leads you to assume the worst in

cases when it isn't warranted.

Brian, for instance, is competing for a promotion.

He spent a week preparing for a meeting where he planned to

pitch an idea as part of his bid for the new role.

During the meeting, one of Brian's colleagues asked a

question that exposed a potential weakness that Brian

hadn't considered.

Following the meeting, Brian sat at his desk,

brooding over the question and convincing himself that his

coworker was trying to block his promotion.

Brian's negative bias took over his thought process,

which might otherwise have taken the comment as constructive and

an opportunity for improvement.

Emotive reasoning occurs when you base your interpretation of

a situation on emotions.

Consider Julia, who had been waiting for a colleague to

finish his portion of a report so she could add her analysis.

When he was late passing it along to Julia,

she reasoned that her coworker was trying to sabotage her by

making it difficult for her to deliver the report to their boss

on time.

Julia's emotions of anger and suspicion created this

conclusion and kept her from offering help or another

solution.

Exaggeration distorts your perception of situations because

you inflate the significance of the negative and disregard other

factors.

Take Nicholas, who recently submitted a draft of an

important project to his boss.

His boss returned the work and said it was very good,

but thought that Nicholas should use less technical vocabulary.

Nicholas began to think that his boss was telling him that he

didn't have what it takes to move from a technical role to

higher-management roles.

He felt that he had failed in this instance and wouldn't

receive another opportunity.

Exaggeration kept Nicholas from listening to the compliment his

boss was giving him, and made him focus instead on the small

criticism.

Blame involves accepting responsibility for something

that wasn't your fault, or attributing it to others,

without good reason.

Take Marsha, for example.

When her team's proposal for a lucrative marketing contract was

rejected, rather than consider which of the client's needs

weren't met by their proposal, she immediately accepted the

blame and believed that if she had only tried harder,

they would've succeeded.

By doing so, Marsha wasn't able to take anything productive from

the situation and remained committed to accepting the blame

and resisting future leadership.

Unreasonable beliefs can lead to distorted thoughts.

For this reason, the third step of reaching optimal perception

is to question whether there is evidence for these thoughts,

or if they're the result of irrational thoughts.

A good example of this is emotive reasoning,

where conclusions tend to follow emotions such as suspicion or

anger and have little basis in objective reality.

So if you think your boss hates you,

you should ask yourself why you think this.

If there's no objective proof for it,

you should dispel the thought.

Match each example of a thought to the type of thought

distortion involved.

Options: A - "I can't do anything right."

B - "I don't think we'll ever catch back up."

C - "My boss undermines all of my efforts."

D - "I'll lose the account for this small mistake."

E - "Her poor performance caused the fall in quarterly sales."

Targets: 1 - All or nothing.

2 - Negative bias.

3 - Emotive reasoning.

4 - Exaggeration.
5 - Blame.

Answer: An all or nothing distortion causes you to

generalize outcomes into absolutes – for example,

thinking that you can't do anything right.

A negative bias makes you focus on the negative aspects of a

scenario, like never being able to catch up,

even if it's possible.

Reasoning based on emotions assumes things that are felt,

regardless of whether they're true or not,

like your boss undermining you.

When the negative aspects of a situation are exaggerated,

it's often to the point where the situation seems hopeless –

like a minor mistake having grave consequences,

for example.

This thought distortion is when responsibility for a situation

is either wrongly assumed by an individual or attributed to

others – for example, attributing a decrease in an

entire quarter's figures to one individual's sales.

The fourth step for achieving optimal perception under

pressure is to revise your thoughts,

and apply more constructive interpretations of them.

To do this, try using more positive words.

You should also explore whether there are reasons for your

thoughts, and whether there might be alternative

explanations.

Consider the statement, "There's no way we'll get everything done

on time."

Revised, it might read, "We've got a lot to do,

but I'm confident we can get it done if we each take on one

extra task this week."

Match each negative statement with its revised counterpart.

Options: A - "I can't do anything right."

B - "I don't think we'll ever catch up after this."

C - "My boss undermines all my efforts."

D - "I'll lose the account for this mistake."

E - "Her poor performance caused the fall in quarterly sales."

Targets: 1 - "I did make a mistake,

but it's been corrected, and I learned a valuable lesson from

it."

2 - "We've had a small setback, but if we all share the

workload, we should be back on track by next week."

3 - "I have no reason to believe this,

and I should take his comments as opportunities for

improvement."

4 - "It's too early to tell if I've made a mistake,

but even if I have, it's not as bad as I've made it out to be."

5 - "While we all played a role in the drop,

some aspects are beyond our control."

Answer: In this revision, not being able to do something right

is recognized as not being wholly negative,

and a lesson is drawn from it.

The revision notes that the setback isn't grave,

and proposes sharing the work as a solution.

The lack of evidence for an undermining boss is noted,

and his comments are interpreted in a more positive light.

This revision questions whether a mistake has been made,

and puts it into perspective, that it's not as bad as was

thought.

The blame for the low sales is shared,

and the fact that some factors are beyond your control is

noted.

Thank you for watching, next you will learn more about

identifying the challenge.

Under pressure, responses to situations are often emotional

and based on automatic thoughts.

These include having a negative bias,

blame, emotive reasoning, and exaggeration.

To begin taking appropriate action in the face of pressure,

you need to recognize what exactly the challenge is,

and distinguish between automatic thoughts and emotional

reactions.

The next step is to determine what exactly needs to be

accomplished.

This allows you to minimize emotional distractions and focus

on dealing with the situation.

Finally, this clarifies your priorities and,

when others are involved, helps to establish a common

understanding of the issue.

Take Alan, for example, a salesman at an online

advertising agency.

He's been missing his sales targets lately and is facing

pressure to improve his performance.

During the last week of a sales period,

Alan still hasn't reached his target.

In response to this pressure, Alan's thoughts are being

distorted by his negative bias, blame,

emotive reasoning, and exaggeration.

Alan thinks he's struggling because he's unlikable.

He can't make sales because his personality simply turns his

customers off before he can make his pitch.

Following this train of thought, Alan's sales continue to

decline.

Alan shows his frustration by blaming himself for being a poor

salesman, and blaming his boss for not providing him with

adequate training.

Alan is very upset about this by the time his performance review

arrives, and he confronts his boss about his lack of training.

Alan feels that he hasn't been trained properly.

He thinks this is because his colleagues see him as a lost

cause.

Alan imagines that the other salesmen think that he'll never

succeed as a salesman, but they aren't able to be honest with

him.

Alan figures that they're simply humoring him until finally he

becomes frustrated and quits.

Alan's sales aren't as bad as he thinks.

But his train of thought allows him to believe that something is

fundamentally wrong, leading to a host of negative conclusions.

It would be a great help for Alan to consider how the real

challenge before him is being colored by his emotions and

automatic thoughts.

By stripping away these emotional hooks,

Alan would recognize that what he needs to accomplish is an

increase in his sales.

Reducing his emotional distractions would help him

focus on improvement, such as seeking the training he feels he

needs, which could also increase his confidence.

Alex is a graphic designer at a publishing company.

At a meeting to finalize the design of a book that he's been

working on for several weeks, his boss tells him that she's

unhappy with the way it looks and that Alex should have a

revised version to her by the end of the week.

Alex feels that apart from when his boss gave him some very

rough guidelines of what she wanted when assigning the task,

she hasn't been present and remains unaware of the project's

challenges.

Nor does she seem to be aware of Alex's other projects,

which don't allow him the time to redesign the book.

After the meeting, Alex speaks to a colleague who had a similar

experience.

Alex begins to think this is a case of their boss needing to

exert power over the creative teams.

Which reactions effectively address the real problem of the

situation?

Options: 1 - "I'll schedule a meeting with my boss to discuss

her specific expectations for the book."

2 - "I'll speak with my boss about clearing time from my

schedule so I can address this issue."

3 - "I need to tell my boss that I'm not the only one frustrated

with how she treats the talent around here."

4 - "I need to tell one of the executives about how my boss

uses her authority."

5 - "I'll just have to tell my boss that I don't know what else

to do to make her happy."

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

The real challenge here is for Alex to meet his boss's

expectations, which need to be clarified before he can meet

them.
Option 2: This option is correct.

Because Alex's boss may not be aware of his other commitments,

it's important for Alex to ensure that each task is given

due attention.

This may include enlisting help, or having the deadline for

something postponed.

Option 3: This option is incorrect.

Exaggerating his and a colleague's frustration

contributes nothing to Alex's challenge.

Instead, Alex should strip these hooks away from the real issue:

the design of the book.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

Emotive reasoning, such as Alex's boss exerting her

authority, clouds the issue that needs attention: the redesign

of the book.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

A negative bias highlights the worst aspects of a situation to

make that situation seem impossible,

leaving little room for solutions.

Stressful situations tend to distort how a situation is

perceived.

There are four steps you can follow to optimize your

perception of situations.

First, notice your automatic thoughts.

These thoughts often arise from emotional reactions to

situations and may go undetected at first.

Second, identify thought distortions.

Common types of thought distortions include having a

negative bias, blame, emotive reasoning,

and exaggeration.

The third step is to question whether there is any evidence

for this kind of thinking.

The fourth step is to revise your thoughts.

This involves restating them in a more positive way,

by separating them from any emotional or automatic thinking.

Now, the challenge is known.

Next, you are going to learn about defining the challenge.

To take action in high pressure situations,

you need to first make sure you've optimized how you look at

the challenge.

This means asking whether your perception may be distorted by

emotion and revising any thoughts that are obscured.

Then you should clarify what the real challenge is.

When you have a clear idea of the challenge,

you can follow a four-step method to take effective action.

The first step is to question the challenge.

The second step is to identify your goal.

The third step is to generate and evaluate possible solutions.

And the fourth step is to design an action plan.

The first step of the method, question the challenge,

involves asking questions that focus on the challenge.

For example, ask yourself, "How urgent is it?"

This prompts you to consider a timeline for dealing with the

issue at hand.

You should also ask "How much time do I have to address it?"

Only by establishing the urgency of a problem and the time that's

available can you evaluate how best to resolve the challenge.

Finally, ask "What additional information do I need to be able

to respond to it?"
This ensures that you have a detailed understanding of the

problem before taking action.

Consider Ralph, an engineer managing a project to build a

dam.

A couple of weeks before submitting the plans,

Ralph learns from the development agency that the

budget has shrunk by a significant margin.

Ralph is frustrated because this agency has previously

miscalculated budgets, leaving others in his position to find a

solution.

Ralph decides that he needs to address this problem before the

design is submitted.

Ralph begins by making sure to keep the challenge in

perspective.

He notes that he has roughly one week to deal with this urgent

issue, and may need to consult experts for technical

information.

You're a systems analyst at a technical support company.

Recently, the software you set up has been causing some

problems.

You've been approached by several employees experiencing

difficulties, which seem to be escalating.

Which examples illustrate things you should do as part of the

first step in the process of taking action?

Options: 1 - Assess how damaging the problem is.

2 - Determine how soon the malfunctioning software needs to

be repaired.

3 - Speak to people from each area experiencing difficulties.

4 - Consider enlisting an external specialist.

5 - List each set of repairs needed.

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

Part of the first step is to determine the urgency of the

issue, in this case, what damage is being done.

Option 2: This option is correct.

The first step requires you to get an idea about how much time

you have to solve the problem.

Option 3: This option is correct.

Part of the first step is asking what additional information you

may need to respond effectively - in this case,

asking about the variety of problems being experienced.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

Proposing solutions, such as getting outside help,

isn't part of the first step.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

Determining what needs to be done to solve the problem isn't

part of the first step.

That's it, next something about how to identify your goal.

-----------------------------------------------------------SECTION
4------------------------------------------------
The second step of the method for taking action is to identify

your goal.

To help identify it, ask "What do I need to achieve?"

You need to be clear about the challenge,

and what kind of solution is acceptable,

before you can prescribe any actions.

Remember Ralph?

His second step is to ask himself what he needs to achieve

to address the funding problem.

He decides that he needs to keep the project running on schedule.

This goal is directly related to the challenge,

and avoids any emotional or automatic thoughts.

You're an accountant working for a large oil and gas company.

Due to cutbacks, there are fewer people in your role trying to

keep up with the same amount of work,

and you're under constant pressure to keep up.

When your boss tells you that he needs you to take on yet another

account, you become angry and desperate.

Which examples represent goals that address what needs to be

achieved?

Options: 1 - Your boss needs to realize that he doesn't

understand that the organization is making unrealistic demands of

its accountants.

2 - You need to hire an assistant to help you accomplish

everything being asked of you.

3 - You need to meet with your boss to plan a schedule that

allows you to meet each of your objectives.

4 - You need to scan your projects to ensure that your

tasks are limited to those requiring your expertise,

and that tasks that can be accomplished by lower-level

employees are so delegated.

Answer: Option 1: This option is incorrect.

Recognizing what needs to be achieved means setting realistic

and achievable goals that are free from emotional hooks.

This goal stems from frustration and anger.

Option 2: This option is incorrect.

Hiring an assistant is an unrealistic reaction stemming

from frustration.

Recognizing what needs to be accomplished means choosing

actions that are reasonable and free from emotional hooks.

Option 3: This option is correct.

This goal is realistic and achievable.

What's more, it allows you to voice your concerns of overwork.

Option 4: This option is correct.

This goal is reasonable because it takes the particulars of the

scenario into account and has the potential to resolve the

problem at hand.

So, this was the second step of the method for taking action:

identify your goal.

Next, something more about how to generate and evaluate

solutions.

Once you've defined your challenge and identified your

goal, the third step is to generate and evaluate possible

solutions.

This involves thinking about what kind of actions you could

take and the effects they may have.

You can begin by imagining a variety of alternative solutions

to the problem.

Then try to think of any potential negative effects.

You may also want to discuss solutions with a colleague or

mentor.

For example, perhaps you're thinking of how to manage a

difficult customer.

Having an experienced colleague evaluate your solutions may be

helpful.

Finally, select the best solution from your list.

This may be the one that's most practical,

or that offers the most advantages and fewest drawbacks.

Considering a variety of solutions increases the value of

the action you ultimately decide on.

This is because it not only allows you to think about what

else you could've done, but also provides you with a clear

rationale for your decision.

Ralph considers potential solutions.

He thinks he could appeal to the funding agency to renegotiate

the project budget.

Alternatively, he could ask the other engineers for ways to

reduce the construction costs.

Or he could stay the course and hope that if he does go over

budget, the agency will be forced to cover the extra costs.

Ralph thinks that the first option is unlikely,

since the agency isn't known for loosening budgetary constraints.

Similarly, if he doesn't redesign the project,

it will almost certainly exceed the revised budget,

which will have serious consequences.

Ralph decides that he should meet with his team of

specialists to find options for reducing the cost of the

project.

Blanche is a writer at a magazine.

She hasn't been able to confirm several quotations she plans to

include as part of her story and her deadline is drawing near.

Which actions are appropriate for the third step of the

method?

Options: 1 - Suggest changing the focus of the story to

highlight her confirmed research.

2 - Consider that if she keeps the story as it is,

and the unchecked quotations are discovered,

she could lose her job.

3 - Ask another journalist to have a look at her options.

4 - Ask to have her deadline extended.

5 - Ask what kind of result is acceptable to her.

6 - Ask herself when she'll have to make her decision.

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

Part of the third step is to select the most acceptable

solution of those proposed and evaluated.

Option 2: This option is correct.

An integral part of the third step is to evaluate potential

solutions, trying to think of any potential negative effects.

Option 3: This option is correct.

In the third step, it's a good idea to discuss options with a

colleague or mentor to gain another perspective on the

issue.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

The first part of the third step is to imagine alternative

solutions so that they can be compared with each other.

Having her deadline extended, however,

doesn't address the problem that her sources haven't been

corroborated.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

Asking this question is part of the second step,

identifying the goal.

In the third step, the focus should be on generating

solutions and evaluating them.

Option 6: This option is incorrect.

Determining how much time there is to deal with the challenge is

part of the first step.

In the third step, she should generate and evaluate potential

solutions.

And now that we understand what to do,

let's go to the next step.

In the next lesson you are going to learn how to design a plan of

action.

Once you've decided on a solution,

the final step is to design a plan of action to implement the

solution you've chosen.

The first thing you should do is divide what needs to be done

into manageable tasks or steps that can be accomplished with

relative ease.

This can help to keep you from being overwhelmed by the

pressure, or becoming paralyzed by over-analysis.

When you have a manageable set of tasks prepared,

you should then assign specific times to them.

This helps keep you committed, and stops you from spending too

much time on any one task.

Ensure that one item on your action plan can be done

immediately to build momentum.

This should be something that you can do as soon as you finish

writing your action plan.

This is important because if you don't include something you can

do right away, you're more likely to fall prey to

procrastination.

To meet his goal of redesigning the dam in order to stay on

schedule, Ralph puts together a plan of action.

He plans to begin by contacting his team of engineers by e-mail

to explain the situation and arrange a meeting.

Ralph wants to begin with this step so he can take immediate

action and build momentum toward achieving his goal.

Next, he'll consult a materials expert to discuss his options.

Ralph will also consult a local engineer from the region where

the work is being done to come up with ways to save money,

such as hiring local labor.

Finally, he'll prepare a new design and have it reviewed by

his superior to ensure its accuracy.

He schedules each of these steps to be completed within three

days so a meeting can take place at the end of the week.

Stacey is a web designer.

Her current project is more complex than projects she's had

in the past.

Her goal is to achieve the same standard of excellence that has

come to characterize her work.

What actions should Stacey perform in the fourth step of

the method?

Options: 1 - Break the project into having a meeting with the

client, doing research for the project,

sketching a design, and programming the site.

2 - Make a schedule of times for the tasks she has broken the

project into.

3 - Start by e-mailing the client to book a time to meet.

4 - Decide how long she can spend designing the web site.

5 - Ask herself what sort of outcome will satisfy her in the

long run.

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

Dividing what has to be done into manageable tasks will help

Stacey to keep moving from one task to the next and avoid

paralysis.

Option 2: This option is correct.

Assigning specific times to each task guards against

perfectionism and procrastination.

Option 3: This option is correct.

It's helpful to include one task that can be done immediately.

In this case, e-mailing the client will allow Stacey to

build momentum toward her goal right away.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

Determining how much time you have to meet a challenge is part

of the first step.

The fourth step focuses on dividing the task into smaller

tasks and assigning times to complete them.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

This is something done as part of the second step.

In the fourth step, the focus is on dividing the task into

manageable jobs and scheduling times for them.

What are the benefits associated with having a strategy to take

action while under pressure?

Options: 1 - You can respond more effectively to the

situation.

2 - Your chosen solution's value is enhanced.

3 - You're less likely to be overwhelmed by the pressure.

4 - You're less likely to fall prey to procrastination.

5 - Your successful performance is assured.

6 - You'll be able to avoid the consequences of pressure.

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

When you have a clear idea of the challenge,

your response is likely to be more effective.

Option 2: This option is correct.

Considering and weighing alternative solutions increases

the value of a solution.

This is because it benefits from having been selected from a

variety of alternatives.

Option 3: This option is correct.

Dividing your task into manageable tasks helps guard

against becoming paralyzed by over-analysis.

Option 4: This option is correct.

Including something that you can do immediately allows you to

build momentum toward achieving your goal.

This guards against procrastination.

Option 5: This option is incorrect.

Having a strategy in place for managing high-pressure

situations can help you to perform more effectively.

But it doesn't guarantee success.

Option 6: This option is incorrect.

High-pressure situations are nearly inevitable in business

environments.

However, it is valuable to have a strategy in place for managing

your performance when they arise.

You're an architect and your first drafts of drawings for a

new project have been returned to you.

Apparently they failed to live up to what the developer had

envisioned.

Match the examples of your actions with the corresponding

steps of the method for taking action in a high-pressure

situation.

Options: A - You clarify that your drawings are needed as soon

as possible B.

You aim to have your drawings reflect the developer's vision.

C - You recognize that asking others for help will disrupt

schedules D.

You intend to begin by revisiting the developer's

vision.

Targets: 1 - Question the challenge.

2 - Identify your goal.

3 - Generate and evaluate possible solutions.

4 - Design an action plan.

Answer: The first step involves clarifying the details of the

challenge, including how much time you have to address it.

The second step is to state your goal - for example,

to reflect the developer's vision in your work.

The third step requires you to imagine different solutions and

evaluate them.

In this case, asking others for help is rejected because it will

disrupt their schedules.

The fourth step is to design a plan of action.

Reviewing the developer's vision is an example of how the plan

should include a task that can be done immediately to build

momentum.

To Conclude There's a four-step method you can follow for taking

action in high-pressure situations.

First, question the challenge.

This involves asking how urgent the challenge is,

how much time you have to address it,

and what, if any, additional information you need to be able

to respond to it.

The second step is to identify your goal.

This can be accomplished by asking yourself what you need to

achieve.

The third step is to generate and evaluate possible solutions.

Here you should imagine alternative solutions,

think of any potential negative effects they may have,

discuss them with a colleague or mentor,

and finally select the most acceptable one.

The fourth step is to design a plan of action.

Begin by dividing what needs to be done into manageable tasks,

and assign specific times for accomplishing each.

Finally, make sure that one element can be done immediately

to build momentum toward your goal.

Next, take a brake and practice managing pressure.

Not really a break, more like a case study.

But, you'll discover this yourself.

Those who struggle when they're under pressure often tend to do

so because they overthink a situation or become

overconfident.

Overthinking may lead you to focus too much on the details of

your performance.

Alternatively, overconfidence may lead you to underestimate

challenges.

Many stress-induced reactions are driven by automatic thoughts

linked to emotions.

By learning to recognize these kinds of thought distortions,

you can optimize your responses to high-pressure situations.

You need to be able to clearly and objectively identify the

challenge posed by a situation.

Then you can implement a strategy to meet that challenge.

You can follow four steps to help you define and address a

challenge.

The first is to question the challenge.

Second, identify your goal.

Third, generate and evaluate possible solutions.

And fourth, design an action plan.

You're feeling pressured because you're struggling with new

software your organization has implemented in your department.

Access the learning aid Ordering Department Case Study to review

the scenario, and then answer the questions.

Revise your distorted thoughts, identify the real challenge,

and determine what action to take by answering the questions

in order.

Match each of the automatic thoughts or emotional responses

to their appropriate revisions.

Options: A - "I'll never learn how to use this new software."

B - "I just can't work with new technology."

C - "They're trying to push those of us uncomfortable with

technology out."

D.

"They've made this difficult on purpose."

Targets: 1 - "I find this change difficult,

but with some practice, I'll learn to use it effectively."

2 - "I'm uncomfortable about working with computers,

but I'll try my best to learn."

3 - "I don't have any reason to believe this,

and I can take advantage of training opportunities to

learn."

4 - "I don't know this for a fact,

besides it's not as confusing as I think."

Answer: Thinking you'll "never" be able to use the software is a

form of all or nothing thinking.

By recognizing the real challenge,

you can identify what you can do to overcome it.

Thinking you're simply unable to work with computers is an

exaggeration.

If you haven't used them before, it may be a challenge,

but one that you can work to achieve.

Emotive reasoning confuses emotional thoughts with

objective proof.

In this case, there's no evidence that the company is

trying to push certain employees out,

and you should focus instead on what you can do to overcome the

challenge.

In saying that the company has made the process confusing on

purpose, the lack of evidence is paired with frustration and

anger to draw an unreasonable conclusion.

By ignoring the emotional hook, you can look at the challenge in

neutral terms and begin to take action.

Which examples describe the real challenge presented in this

situation?

Options: 1 - "I need to learn how to use the new software so I

can continue to excel at my job."

2 - "Since I haven't worked with computers much,

I need to take advantage of the training courses being offered."

3 - "I need to protect my job from employees who are more

comfortable working with computers."

4 - "I need to raise this issue with Human Resources as the form

of discrimination that it is."

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

The challenge of learning to use the software is clearly stated

here, distinct from any emotional responses or automatic

thoughts.

Option 2: This option is correct.

Part of the challenge is highlighted and linked to a

potential action, which is distinguished from emotions that

may be associated with it.

Option 3: This option is incorrect.

The real challenge of a situation needs to be separated

from any emotional thoughts.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

Identifying the actual challenge of a situation requires you to

separate it from emotional reactions.

In this case, the sense of persecution stems from the anger

of having to do things differently.

Match the actions with the steps in the process of taking action

in response to a challenge.

Access the job aid Taking Action Under Pressure to help you

answer the question.

Options: A - "I should be able to use the software by next

month."

B - "I need to use the new software to do my job better."

C - "Maybe I could ask a colleague to coach me on the new

software."

D - "I'll start by asking my boss what training courses are

available to me."

Targets: 1.

Step 1 2.

Step 2 3.

Step 3 4.

Step 4 Answer: The first step helps you determine some of the

details of the challenge, in this case,

how much time you have to address it.

In the second step, you should state your goal by asking

yourself what you need to achieve.

Here, it's using the software to your advantage.

The third step involves thinking of alternative solutions and

evaluating them.

In this case, one idea may be to ask a capable colleague for

assistance.

A plan of action needs to include something you can do

immediately to build momentum, such as speaking to your boss

about training courses.

You're struggling to get everything done in your busy

schedule today.

Access the learning aid Web Content Case Study to review the

scenario, and then answer the questions.

Answer the questions in order to practice revising negative

thoughts, identifying the challenge of the situation,

and following the steps for taking action in high-pressure

situations.

Match each automatic or emotional reaction with the

revised version.

Access the job aid Taking Action Under Pressure to help you

answer the question.

Options: A - "He let that meeting run long on purpose."

B - "I'll never finish the reservation system."

C - "Nobody in this office is organized enough to run a proper

meeting."

D - "He just doesn't care about other people's commitments."

Targets: 1 - "There's no good reason to suspect that,

and, while frustrating, it's done."

2 - "True, there have been unforeseen delays.

But I'll manage to get it done by getting some help."

3 - "Some people do seem to struggle with running meetings

on schedule.

Maybe I can offer to help them plan their meetings in the

future."

4 - "I think he was under a lot of pressure and didn't realize

how long it would take, since he's always been considerate in

the past."

Answer: Emotive reasoning can lead you to make judgments that

have no basis in reality.

Thinking that the meeting leader ran long to spite you will

likely lead you to fixate on the problem,

rather than move past it.

A negative bias, like thinking you'll never complete

your task, can keep you from finding solutions.

By noting the challenges, and then thinking of ways to move

on, you'll be able to find solutions.

Exaggeration tends to focus too much on the negative aspects of

a situation and ignores what can be done to improve things.

In this case, convincing yourself that everyone lacks

organization is unrealistic and not constructive.

Instead of thinking that she doesn't care about other people,

you're better off trying to see a reason why he may have acted

that way and then moving to meet the challenge you're facing.

Which statements reflect the true challenge posed by the

situation?

Options: 1 - "I need to finish my reservation system project

today."

2 - "I need to know what happens at this last meeting of the

day."

3 - "I need to have a serious discussion with everyone in the

office about keeping meetings on track and on time."

4 - "I need to inform my boss that people are running

ineffective meetings that often take too long."

Answer: Option 1: This option is correct.

It relates to the particulars of the situation,

which are separated from any emotional or automatic thoughts.

Option 2: This option is correct.

The challenge is clearly identified and effectively

distinguished from any emotional reactions or automatic thoughts

that may have become associated with it.

Option 3: This option is incorrect.

While you may feel this is true, it contributes nothing that's

relevant to the challenge at hand.

Option 4: This option is incorrect.

First, this response is driven by frustration,

which should be kept at arm's length when identifying your

challenge.

It's also irrelevant to the challenge posed by the

situation.

Match the actions to the corresponding steps of the

process for taking action for performing under pressure.

Access the job aid Taking Action Under Pressure to help you

answer the question.

Options: A - "This needs to be resolved in the next hour."

B - "I need to finish my work and be aware of what's decided

in the meeting."

C - "Maybe someone could attend the meeting on my behalf."

D - "I'll give myself 15 minutes to find someone who can go to

the meeting for me."

Targets: 1.

Step 1 2.

Step 2 3.

Step 3 4.

Step 4 Answer: The first step is questioning the challenge.

This includes asking how urgent it is and how much time you have

to address it.

The second step is identifying your goal.

This can be effectively stated by asking what you need to

achieve, in this case, completing the task and being

kept abreast of the meeting's proceedings.

The third step is to generate and evaluate possible solutions.

For example, you could have someone go to the meeting in

your place.

The fourth step is developing a plan of action.

An important part of this is assigning specific times to each

task.

In this case, a window of only 15 minutes is available.

Performing under pressure can be difficult.

It's common for people to respond by overthinking or with

overconfidence, both of which can lead people to perform below

their abilities.

To avoid these tendencies, you should aim to optimize your

perceptions by recognizing distortions and revising

negative thoughts.

Finally, it's helpful to rely on a process for taking action in

high-pressure situations.

So, pressure can be managed.

And, it's not even that complicates.

Next you will learn about taking action under pressure.

----------------------------------------------------------------SECTION
5-----------------------------------------------------

Course Project (Optional)

Course Project (Optional)

0. Take all the lessons of this course (having written notes might help)

1. Identify and describe a pressure situation (a project, a task, a personal

situation)

2. Describe as detailed as possible your reaction, the results obtained and the
impact on your work / personal environment.

3. Compare step-by-step your story with the described process for taking action
under pressure. Identify the congruency points and things to be improved.

4. Identify the factors that helped you to identify the real challenge, control
emotions and adopt a structured approach in a pressure situations.

5. Identify the factor that didn't help, or that made you not achieve the expected
results or to take the right actions.

6. Put your conclusions on paper (not more than one page).

7. Optionally, post your conclusions on the discussion board.

(If you can make this project better, any suggestion is welcome)

Thank you,

Sorin

Congratulations!

You just finish the course on Performance Under Pressure -

Taking Action.

Now you know that acting effectively in high-pressure

situations is not easy, and why.

And, you understand that over-confidence can lead to poor

judgment, and over-thinking the situation can lead to paralysis.

Also, it is clear now that your perception may become clouded by

negative thoughts and emotions in times of pressure.

And, it's exactly at these times that you need to perceive the

challenges most clearly so that you can set appropriate goals

and take effective action to achieve them.

This course set out some principles to help you avoid the

dangers of overconfidence and overthinking,

which can impair your performance when under pressure.

It then thought a technique for clarifying your perceptions in

such situations and creating an action plan to optimize your

performance under pressure.

Professionals who want to develop their abilities to

manage the stress that comes with working under pressure,

and those who want to develop or refine their skills for

performing under pressure benefited from this course.

And, now after completing this topic,

you are be able to: avoid over-analysis and

over-confidence in high-pressure situations,

understand the challenge in a high-pressure situation from

emotional reactions, manage automatic thoughts to optimize

perceptions in high-pressure situations,

use appropriate steps in the process of taking action in a

high-pressure situation, and take action in pressure

situations to match every challenge.

Thank you again for taking this course.

Don't forget, this is part of a three courses series.

First focused on The Right Attitude Under Pressure.

This one is the second and focused on Taking Action.

And, next will be the course on Managing Relationships Under

Pressure.

That's it for now.

See you on the next course!

------------------------------------------------------------COURSE 3
START-----------------------------------------------
The majority of people believe that assertiveness is inextricably linked to saying
No, so they

negate everything. I would modify this by stating that assertiveness is the ability

to behave and communicate with others in a strong and confident way. It is the
skill

to quickly analyze the situation, decide whether to comply or reject or refrain

from taking

action. Regardless of the decision, it should be executed in such a way that would
allow

everyone to maintain their integrity. Assertive individuals are able to capture

people’s

attention and convey their message in a convincing manner. They create harmony
during their interaction

with others. Passive behavior is the inability to consider

your own rights. You give precedence to the needs and desire of others because you
are

more concerned about their well-being and at the same time would like to be seen in

a good light. Passiveness usually comes in a package with low self-esteem and
insecurity.

Aggressive behavior relates to the tendency to get what you want without stopping
to consider

the basic rights of others. It is the tendency to dictate, disgrace and make others
obedient.

After an incident, assertive people, along with the interlocutors, will feel peace
of

mind. Passive people will feel conscience-stricken for having given in yet again.
Aggressive

people will feel fulfilled, whereas those at the receiving end will feel
distressed,

ashamed, but at the same time, angry and resentful. The aim of this short course is
to allow you

to get an insight into your own personality and show you what steps you need to
take to

acquire the power of assertiveness. I will show you how to communicate both
verbally

and non-verbally so as to attract people’s attention, gain their respect and

convince

them to cooperate. By applying the knowledge, I provide in this course, you will be
able
to manage stress, criticism and conflictual situations in both your private and
professional

lives. This in turn will make you feel better in your own company, as well as in
the company

of others. Assertiveness is the precursor to a life of quality.

Confidence is a state of mind that makes you feel at ease in uncomfortable or

difficult

situations. It is the internal resource that drives you towards achieving your
goals and

fulfilling your dreams. It allows you to communicate assertively and hence initiate
healthier relationships.

The good news is that we have all had situations in our lives when we felt
extremely confident

and were able to conquer obstacles and accomplish our goals. And believe me, images
of these

incidents are stored in the deep recesses of our minds. All you need to do is to
delve

into your subconscious mind to retrieve the images and relive the moments once
again.

Literally drag your body and mind back into these past situations and recapture the
feeling

of confidence. Recollect the way you were standing and talking and gesticulating.
Recall

your facial expression and visualize how others were reacting. They were looking at
you with

respect and admiration and were willing to collaborate with you. By reliving these
situations,

you reinforce your feeling of confidence. In addition, before tackling something

you

perceive as problematic or overpowering, try to envision all the pleasure and

benefits

you would get upon its accomplishment. This is usually enough to trigger your brain
into

action. Remember, if you see it and feel it, you will achieve it. Confident people
dress

with authority. They smile, look others in the eyes, stand tall and walk as if they
had

a mission to fulfill. Single out such people in your company and emulate their
behavior.
If you can reproduce their motions of confidence, you will acquire their emotions
of confidence.

Remember, fake it and sooner or later you will make it. In order to acquire
confidence

and communicate assertively, you need to bear in mind that it is normal that you
may not

be liked and accepted by everyone. You should strive towards building professional
relationships

in the office that is based on honesty, clarity and constructive discussions. If

someone does

not like or accept you, then they have a problem. Let their blood pressure go up,
not yours.

Assertive communication is the competence to deliver messages that clearly reveal

your

intentions, without destroying the protocol of etiquette. If you treat people with
respect

and show them that you understand their way of reasoning, then they will
reciprocate and

become more receptive during the interaction. Show others that you are prepared to
take

responsibility for your actions by using I statements. Instead of beating around

the

bush and leaving your boss irritated, you could simply say, “I have a doctor’s
appointment

tomorrow and I would like to leave work at 2 P.M. Would that be okay for you? I
will

make sure that none of my tasks are outstanding. Your boss understands that you are
asking

him a favor and since you are doing it the right way, it would be difficult for him
to

refuse. Do you need clarification from your subordinate? Use the I statement and
finish

with a straightforward question, “I understand that you will complete your tasks by
Monday,

which means that we will reach the deadline, am I right?” You want to flatter your
child

for having tidied their room. Most parents would say, “Oh, your room looks great.
Now

you will finally be able to concentrate on your schoolwork”. Assertive parents

would
do it differently, “I see you have done a magnificent job. You have cleaned the
floor

and put away all your clothes in the wardrobe and placed your books on the
shelves.” By

pointing out exactly what impressed you, you add more significance to your message.
People

are generally economical with their compliments. They would merely say, “Good job”,
or

“nice presentation”. An assertive individual would be more personal and specific,

“I

think your speech was mesmerizing”. You have great insight in the topic.”. You may

find yourself in situations where you have to say no, but the other person is
relentless

in their request. In order to remain calm and assert yourself, reinforce your I
statement

with the broken record tactic. You can say, “I am sorry. I am unable to
accommodate,”

and then repeat the same sentence every time they repeat their request.

The eyes can be used as a powerful tool to define your assertiveness. When you
maintain

eye contact with others during the conversation, you are telling them that you are
sincere

and interested in what they have to say. It also proves that you are strong and
confident.

This will allow you to be treated seriously and increase your power to influence
others.

Even though your parents and grandparents may not have known the modern definition
of

assertiveness, they intuitively felt that it was right to adopt a straight posture,

with your shoulders thrown back and your head held high. They knew that your
posture determined

whether you were in command or not and that is why they reprimanded you every time
you

slouched. Obey these wise words and it becomes easier to behave assertively and
achieve your

goals. People may formulate their opinion of you based solely on the way you dress,

stand, walk and shake hands. If you get it right the first time, it will set the
stage

for fruitful discussions. When you greet someone, make sure your hand is dry and
kept in a vertical

position as this would convey strength and character. When you talk, make sure your
body

is dancing in alignment with the message. Open your arms and show your palms to
convey

sincerity and agreement and to welcome the others to participate. Bow slightly and
use

the palm up gesture when asking for something and others will comply willingly. If
you use

the palm down gesture or your index finger, they would most likely ignore you as
these

gestures portray a condescending attitude. Folding the arms is generally considered

to

have a negative connotation and should be avoided during a friendly discussion.

However,

you may use it to show your disagreement when someone has become too snippy or
aggressive.

This is when you allow your body to represent you. Assertive people turn their
whole bodies

towards their interlocutors and subtly emulate their non-verbal signals. This
creates the

feeling of affinity and harmony. Remember, they like you if you look like them.

The comfort zone is a psychological state in which you feel comfortable because
your

level of stress and anxiety is low and you know what to expect. You meet the same
people

at work and are able to predict their behavior. You know who you can rely on, who
to avoid

and who will exploit you. Even though you may not accept everything, you remain
passive

because you are afraid to venture into the unknown. The unknown means an additional
dosage

of nervousness, palpitation of your heart and escalation of your blood pressure.

The

good news is that our brain can get accustomed to anything once you give it a
chance and

enough time. When you went to school the first time, you were nervous, frightened,
your mouth

was dry and your heart exceeded its speed limit. The same symptoms appeared when
you

walked into the company on the first day or when you had to meet an important
person.

Did you die or suffer from a mental breakdown? Of course not. After a few times,
your brain

kept its hormones in place and stopped reacting. Bear this in mind when taking your
first step

out of your comfort zone to face challenges. Stop being afraid of what people will
think

as this is one of our biggest obstacles in life. First of all, people have enough
of

their own problems to concentrate on your behavior. And if they do, remember you
cannot

please them all. When you face a new challenge, think about all the positive things
that you

would experience upon its achievement. If this is not enough, then consider what
could

happen in a worst case scenario and prepare yourself for that. It is better to try
and

fail than fail to try. Are you socially anxious and therefore find it difficult to
express

your ideas in the company? Practice talking to strangers in public places and keep
pushing

until you feel comfortable to speak up during staff meetings. Once you do so, your
confidence

and assertiveness increase and others will begin to acknowledge you and accept your
ideas.

Communication is the art of interaction both verbally and non-verbally between two
or more

individuals, during which clear, precise and succinct messages are transmitted.
Failure

to do so results in conflicts… In our fast moving, competitive world of tension,

stress

and jealousy, people find it difficult to manage their emotions effectively. Once
the

tongue outraces the brain and arguments rebound off the ears, disharmony will
govern. Those
who have acquired the power of assertiveness understand the importance of listening
and

acknowledging disagreement during an encounter. If you show others that you

understand their

point of view and treat them with respect, it will be easier to gain their
attention

and tend towards reconciliation. Once the situation gets out of hand, people stop
listening

and delve into the past to find counter-arguments, even if they are not related to
the topic.

Are you guilty of doing so? One of my students told me of a strategy she used
whenever she

had an argument with her fiancé. As soon as he started to dig up the past, she
raised

her hand and said, “Wait, this is not the topic of our argument.” Her reaction
evoked

a smile and both of them were able to cool down emotionally and solve the issue.
Her

fiancé has learned from her and uses the same strategy when she reaches her boiling

point. At the workplace, conflicts are inevitable, especially when workers are
tired and stressed

due to deadlines. Your colleague may have failed to submit part of his work.
Instead

of losing your cool, simply approach them, point out the problem and ask politely
for

an explanation. You could say, “I noticed that you didn’t submit your work
yesterday.

Is everything ok?” Your subordinate is exasperated because of the complexity of his

task and

the approaching deadline. Instead of getting involved in a fruitless battle, let

him know

that you understand how complicated and challenging the task is and how difficult
it is to deliver

on time. By empathizing with him and creating rapport, you make him feel less
frustrated

and more motivated. Only then can you move on and ask him to work on Saturdays to
finish

within the time limit.

Whenever we encounter difficult, uncomfortable or dangerous situations, a series of

reactions

will take place, which leads to the release of specific hormones. Cortisol
increases the

level of glucose in the blood to cater for top muscle performance. Adrenaline,
which

is considered as the fight or flight or freeze hormone stimulates the heart to beat
faster

to send more blood to our muscles. Our blood pressure goes sky high, our mouths
become

dry and we may sweat profusely. Unfortunately, however, the stress mode may hinder
our ability

to communicate assertively. In order to overcome this, we need to identify the

stressful situations

beforehand and take appropriate measures to conquer them. For example, you are one
of

those people who feel extremely anxious before going to work on Monday morning.
This is related

to stress factors at work that you keep concentrating on, even when you are away
from the office.

My philosophy is simple, “If you cannot resign from your job, then find reasons to

like it”. In order to like your job, seek and focus on the things that give you
pleasure

at work and once your brain makes that linkage, your heart will stop pounding
nervously on

Sunday evening and you will stop being a Sunday monster to your family. You may
have a well-paid

job that is stressful. Concentrate on the stress and you will be committing mental
suicide.

Assertive people focus on the incentives and reserve their good mood. Your working
hours

are spread over different time zones. Those, who continually beat up themselves for
having

to work unsociable hours, will suffer. The assertive individual will come to terms
with

this situation and focus on the prestigious position and all the other benefits he
receives

from the company. In times of impending redundancies, workers begin to worry

themselves into depression.

They are convinced that they will be the next victim and then send this message to
their

subconscious mind day after day until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They
begin to

malfunction and eventually secure a place on the firing list. The assertive worker
will

summon the motivation to perform even better and will update his resume and speed
up his

networking.

----------------------------------------------------------SECTION
2--------------------------------------
One of the reasons why people find it difficult to assert themselves is because
they were continually

criticized in the past by those who played an important role in their lives.

Parents grandparents relatives and teachers who did not understand how to
communicate effectively may

have intentionally or unintentionally destroyed people's confidence and self-esteem

through bad behavior

instead of acknowledging someone's virtues.

They concentrated only on their defects instead of congratulating their children

for achieving a grade

be at school.

They humiliated them for not getting a career.

Instead of flattering them for a good piece of work that had been executed.

They punctuated what was lacking before they had prepared or was never Tastee what
was always lacking

something.

Their rooms were never properly cleaned and they were never well dressed.

Think about it and you will find hundreds of faults in others.

However at the same time there are also so many good things you could find.

If you have the willingness to do so.

This is the reason why so many people struggle through life.

Their self-esteem and self-confidence have been destroyed by those who have the
tendency to criticise

in the next two videos.

I will go into more details as to why people criticize Otter's the effect it could
have on one's positivity.
And then what to do to counteract this problem and regain a positive mindset.

Remember if you do not have a positive approach to life it becomes difficult to

search yourself and

achieve success.

It is impossible to capture and pull back the bitter, hissing words that have just
flown

out of someone's mouth. These words are like a bayonet. They leave deep,
psychological

wounds that damage your positivity. They destroy your self-esteem and leave you
with a feeling

of anger and frustration. Your pride is hurt and your self-confidence falters. You
lose

your positive energy and you find it difficult to think effectively. If you ever
find yourself

at the receiving end of these lethal, verbal bullets, then you need to know how to
react

in order to preserve your sanity. Your reaction should be based on your knowledge
of criticism.

Understand the logic behind criticism and then you will react appropriately. So,
let

me start by telling you about criticism that is based on jealousy. Now, as long as
you

remain insignificant, unsuccessful, jealous people will leave you alone and this is
simply

because you do not pose threat to their self-esteem. They will not beat a beaten
dog. However,

as you start to make progress in life and become more successful, more important,
it

will arouse their jealousy. Jealousy is negative energy, it is bad energy that
accumulates

in their body and at some point they need to vent their emotions. This is when they

will lash out at you hoping to inflict pain. Now, I have a simple remedy to this
problem.

I would like you to think that the unjust criticism that is coming from jealous
people

is a hidden compliment. This will allow you to maintain your positivity and remain
calm

and composed. Remember, do not defend yourself, do not even try to explain to them
that they

are wrong. Remember, they are trying to hurt you, so do not give them the pleasure.
Let

me give you an example. I vividly remember the reaction of an ex-friend of mine,

many

years ago when I drove up to work in a brand new car. He looked at my car for an
interminable

moment and said to me: "Roy, I don't like this model and I think the color makes it

look dirty.". I laughed and said to him: "That's okay. I understand how you feel."
and then

I turned and walked away, leaving him suffering in loneliness. Now, I know very
well that

you have had situation in the past and, for sure, you will encounter such
situations of

jealousy in the future, so please remember one thing. They want to hurt you, so do
not

give them the pleasure. Ask yourself how would your enemy feel if they realized
that you

were suffering because of them. They would feel good. Do you want them to feel
good?

Of course not. Think positive and positive things will happen. Thank you very much.

Some people are critical through acquisition and may not even realize that they are
hurting

you. They were continually criticized when growing up and do not know that there is
an

alternative approach. They criticize everything and may intentionally or

unintentionally use

destructive remarks, when assessing you and your work. In the majority of cases
destructive

criticism comes in a package together with negativity and inferiority complex. So,
it

is important for you to be aware of this as this will allow you to take the
appropriate

strategic approach, when dealing with this kind of criticism. If the feedback is
substantive,

then ignore the sarcastic undertone and strive towards making amendments to improve
the situation.

Remember, even though they are emotionally unbalanced and spiteful, it does not
mean
that you are relived of the responsibility to acknowledge and correct your
mistakes.

It is natural that you will be infuriated. However, you need to manage your anger
properly.

Tell yourself that you understand the rules and that you are in control of the
situation.

You will not allow them to provoke you, because you are stronger than them. This
will allow

you to remain calm and as a result you will avoid an unnecessary argument. You see,
when

you lose control, you behave irrationally and may regret it later. SO, the general
rule

is: "Filter the message that they're sending to you by eliminating the abusive
words. Locate

the problem and then take the appropriate steps to enhance your skills.". The best
kind

of criticism is constructive criticism. People, who are emotionally intelligent

know very

well that they should concentrate on the problem, instead of attacking people's
moral character.

They define the mistake very well and may even give you hints of how to go about
solving

the problem. They are calm and friendly and they have a reassuring demeanor. When
they

talk to you, they treat you with respect and dignity and it's because of this that
it's

easier for you to be attentive and receptive, when listening to their feedback.
Constructive

criticism allow you to preserve your positivity and you may even get the motivation
to strive

towards continuous excellence. Thank you very much.

In this last video, I would like to thank you for enrolling in this course.
However,

I also have one last piece of advice. Practice, practice, practice and practice,
because practice

makes perfect. If you apply yourself to it, then assertiveness becomes a skill that
you

can master. Go back to your childhood memories and think about the first time you
rode a
bicycle. Was it easy? Of course not. You fell down countless times and ended up
with dirt

in your mouth. But you never gave up. You kept getting back up and one day you
finally

mastered the skill. It became a part of you. It is the same with any other skills,
including

assertiveness. If you practice diligently, then the skill will become permanently
embedded

in your brain. Using it will be effortless, natural and unconscious.

I am sure that, even though this course is short, it has brought you a lot of
value.

However, if you would like to learn even more about assertiveness, then you should
definitely

take a look at the next lecture. Thank you and see you soon.

---------------------------------------------------SECTION
3-------------------------------------------------------
You are in a restaurant and the food you ordered is undercooked and the service is
unprofessional.

Passive people would stifle their anger, make a heroic attempt to consume the meal,
leave

without any complaints and stay away from the restaurant in the future. The
aggressive

diner would rage and abuse the waiter for the poor service and refuse to pay. In my

opinion, the best reaction would be to summon the manager as soon as you start
eating and

calmly explain the reason for your disappointment. Look him in the eyes, adopt a
confident posture

and let him know that you will not be able to pay for a meal that you have hardly
consumed.

Even if he offers you another meal, do not accept as you never know what the cook
or

waiter would add in the next meal just to show their disapproval.

Your resources are working additional hours to reach an important deadline. Your
boss

phones you because he needs to borrow one of your team members to solve an issue.
Let

him know that you would like to help him, but due to the urgency to meet your
deadline,
you are unable to comply. He will surely understand and respect you for rejecting.
A passive manager

would accommodate just to please the boss and then spend their time worrying how to

make up for the lost time. You are waiting in the line at the outpatients’

clinic and one of the patients is complaining angrily about how much time he is
forced to

wait to see the doctor. He criticizes the nurses and the whole medical system. From

time to time he will try to capture your eyes, seeking reinforcement and approval.
The best

reaction in this case is no reaction or just non-verbally show your disapproval by

folding

your arms and remaining impassive. After your presentation, one of the attendees

asks you a question and you do not know the answer. Unfortunately, your boss is a
part

of the audience and is observing you attentively. Some presenters will concoct an
answer, hoping

to satisfy the intruder and quickly move on to another question. Unfortunately,

their

accompanying non-verbal signals will give them away and make them incredible.
Assertive

communicators will thank the participant for asking a good, substantive question,
let them

know that the subject requires further research and then promise to follow up with
an answer.

You are supposed to be conducting an online demo that has of course been scheduled
for a particularly

a period of time.

One of the participants is 20 minutes late I'm asked to in a polite way if you
could repeat what you

had already said a passive individual would most likely comply just to please that
person without even

stopping to consider that it would mean prolonging the meeting or that the order
participants would

have to listen to what you had already said once again.

And that it could be a waste of their precious time on aggressive individual would
reject and get angry

and reprimand the late comer for being on punctual and will then go on to give a
sermon about punctuality.
Let me tell you how I reacted in this particular situation.

I simply told inconsiderately it come or that I understood that it was important

for him to get a full

picture of the devil.

However it would be better to ask another worker who had been punctual to fill him
in on the missing

information after the presentation.

I did not even have to accentuate that.

It would be a waste of other people's precious time because he understood fully the
message that I was

sending to him.

I asserted myself without hurting anyone's feelings and for sure it did not make
sense of finding the

lead comr because his lateness could have been caused by circumstances beyond his
control.

For example he may have had problems signing in for the group call or installing
the plug in and I may

have these kind of problems in the future.

An acquaintance of mine called me sometime in the past and ask whether I knew any
self-improvement trainers

as his brother was going through a stressful period at work and needed guidance.

I knew very well that he was indirectly suggesting that I should take care of his
brother because he

knew that I conducted self-improvement training both online and on site and that I
also work with individual

clients.

However he was too passive to outrightly state his intention.

Now this is a typical behavior of passive people who would beat around the bush
hoping you would guess

what they wanted.

Unfortunately this approach may lead to misunderstanding as the recipient would

never be sure of their

real objectives.

I would probably believe that they were truly looking for someone else or maybe
someone even better
than them.

On the other hand however they may have taken into consideration that you did not
really have time and

were hoping that you would help them to find a competent trainer.

We will never know their real intentions in any case.

Those who have mastered the principles of assertiveness would state briefly clearly
politely and confidently

what was on their mind.

If their aim was for you to help then they would most likely say right.

I would like to ask you a favor.

My brother is going through some difficult times at work some stressful times at
work and it is beginning

to have a toll on him.

I know that you are a very busy person but I wonder if you could find some time to
help him to get back

on the right path.

Simple and straightforward isn't it by saying that you have a request you're
actually preparing the

order person for what is coming after that state.

The problem you would like to be solved.

Sure thoughtfulness for their precious time and then ask when are they would be
able to accommodate.

So there are only four simple steps.

Say you have request.

State exactly what you need.

Show compassion for your time and then ask if it's possible.

By doing so you are not pushing them against the wall.

You are not putting pressure on them.

You are giving them enough space and freedom to think and make a decision.

And believe me they would surely appreciate this approach.

Let me give an example of a situation when I behave in a passive way it happened

around 20 years ago

a friend of mine visited me and proposed to prepare his favorite meal for everyone.
It was supposed to be his special version of risotto.

I agreed of course because it was both convenient and exciting to move away from
the daily routine and

try something different and more exotic or Unfortunately however during the
preparation period he was

gone tenuously tasting the food to make sure he had used the right portions of
ingredients instead of

using a different spoon.

He took the same spoon that he was using to turn the food every time he tasted the
food he would give

some of it to his wife to make sure he was doing a good job.

And then he was sure of the spoon right back into the pot for it not her store.

The problem was that he would not even eat the whole content of the spoon.

He would leave some of the rice in the spoon and then throw the rest back right
into the pot with a

quick swing of the hand.

I believe that if my children had seen him out in both his and his wife's life with
the food they would

not have eaten it.

I stood there shocked and amazed at the sight of hideousness and wanted to jump in
and say something

before that dirty spoon connected with the contents of the pot.

However I remained silent because I did not want to offend my friend.

If I had been wiser then I would have reacted in a more assertive way and
assertiveness.

In this case would simply be to tell the so-called cook to use a different spoon to
take the food without

even going into any details.

I know that many of you may believe that I'm oversensitive.

However the bottom line is to defend your rights without hurting other people's
feelings.

When I am preparing meals I never taste it and if I have invited people to my home
and I want to make

sure that everything is right then I would use a different spoon to taste the food
because I'm thoughtful

enough to think about the people who would be consuming my food later.
Considering that I have started to compromise myself.

Let me give you one more example when I found it difficult to assert myself.

It happened around 20 years ago and I was entertaining one of my friends for a
weekend.

At that time my children were 8 6 and 2 years old and they would always watch their
favorite bedtime

stories on TV before going to sleep.

It so happened that on that evening my friend had switched on the TV 30 minutes

earlier and was engaged

in watching his favorite soap opera.

Unfortunately I did not have the courage to go against my friend.

And the result was that my children went to bed that night feeling angry on happy
and sad at not having

been able to watch their cartoon characters in action.

They just couldn't grasp my feeble explanations.

Now this happened a long time ago and I did not have the knowledge at that time to
manage the situation

properly.

I was simply passive or I should say pathetically passive and assertive person
would simply say Hey

John I can see you're fully engaged in that soap opera and I hate to spoil the
show.

However my children would like to watch your favorite cartoons before going to bed.

It's starting in five minutes time.

And unfortunately I do not have in-order TV.

A few years ago I called my subordinate on Skype because I wanted him to work on an
urgent issue.

I would usually call her right away or I would just type Hi John.

And after receiving an answer I would then call that person on this particular day.

I started with a regular high.

However my worker her manager replied that he was on another call as one of his
workers and he would

get back to me.

I waited and after 30 minutes he called back to me when he called back.

I explained to him the issue I wanted him to solve and pointed out the importance
of giving it high

priority at the end of the conversation when we were about to hang up.

I said all John by the way please do not keep me waiting so long in the future when
I call you.

At first he did not understand me and he said what do you mean.

So I went on to tell him that he had me waiting 30 minutes for him.

He then explained that he didn't realize his call would take so long.

I told him that I understood that he could be in the midst of a discussion but
could wait for the right

moment to let the other person know that he would have to stop the call and get
back to him later.

He understood apologized and there were no hard feelings after that incident.

He never had me waiting for him.

And if he had to.

It only took about two minutes.

How would a passive boss react in this situation.

He will most likely wait and fume for the next 30 minutes but will not do anything
to enlighten his

worker.

This means that a worker would never get to know what was bothering him and would
behave in exactly

the same way in the future an aggressive boss would either tell the worker to stop
the conversation

immediately or with the way it and erupt after two minutes and end up abusing his
subordinate for his

lack of respect.

We need to remember that different people have different perception and different
approach to life and

that they may not always behave as you expect.

Let them know in a polite way what your expectations are and they will understand.

Be aggressive and you will kill the atmosphere and decrease their productivity.

The logic is simple get what you want in the right way and you will want what you
get.
If you agree to help someone it should be done in such a way that will make both
you and the request

or feel good.

For example your daughter has asked you to take care of her children for one reason
or the other.

You moan and groan about how busy and tired you are.

Just assure her that you will have to go out of your way to accommodate.

However in the end you agree because you know that you are indeed able to help her
and at the same time

you are aware that you are her only alternative now.

Even though you succumbed both you and your daughter would feel distaste.

This is because your reaction was inappropriate and probably made her feel
conscience stricken for having

bothered you at the same time.

You have also prepared your brain for a negative situation and you would probably
not gain pleasure.

Take care of your grand children.

Considering that you know you can assist her and have decided to do so wouldn't it
be better for everyone

if you told her that by all means you would be happy to help.

It simply does not make sense pitying yourself expecting others to feel guilty
instead of empathy.

It would make them repulsive and this wouldn't weaken the significance of the
support you are providing

in you an experienced worker asks you to a specialist for guidance to resolve a

problem even though

you have time and you are aware of the complexity of the issue.

You refuse bluntly and inform them that they should do more profound research
instead of disturbing

Otter's such a behavior would make the worker feel embarrassed disgust and would
surely have a negative

impact on their confidence and self-esteem.

This in turn could impact their productivity.

Remember it pays off to work in a good and supportive environment so make sure you
do not destroy the

atmosphere by behaving aggressively.

The majority of people claim that they do not have the courage to protect their
rights because it would

mean going against the people they like or respect as a result they find it
difficult to say no.

Even in situations when it's obvious that no other alternative exists this makes
them lose belief in

their ability to ever become assertive and improve the quality of their interaction
with others.

Here is what you can do to get rid of this personality flaw.

Start small and be determined and sooner or later you will get there.

For example someone who is a rican of all Kohol stops you on the street and asks
you for money.

Your normal reaction in this case would probably be to ignore them.

However change your approach and just say in a polite way that you are not able to
help them make it

brief and do not stop as you want.

Avoid getting caught up in on unnecessary discussions.

Say no just for the sake of practicing because the idea is to get your brain
accustom to rejecting.

This will of course be easy for you because you'll know that if you give them the
opportunity they will

create an imaginary situation or imaginary story just to evoke your empathy and get
you to dig into

your wallet.

Offer this.

You can go one step Forder and say no when the worker at the checkout tries to
convince you to buy additional

commodities or a street vendor stops you during your vacation abroad and offers you
a good deal.

You will not suffer when declining because you do not know these people and at the
same time you are

aware that they are simply trying to get something from you.

The next step is to say no when you are with your friends and someone insists that
you have another

helping of food just because it's delicious and it would be a pity not to have an
additional portion
in the past you would have accepted.

Even though you have had enough or you were on a diet and then you went back home
feeling guilty because

you did not want to hurt someone's feelings.

However remember that you have been practicing and it will not be so painful to
refuse.

So just go ahead and give it a try.

It is the same with alcohol.

You have reached your limit and you know that one additional drink would make you
lose control and behave

rationally and that the next day you would regret it or I would have a serious
hangover.

I think you remember very well the consequences of complying in the past.

All you need to do in this situation is to politely reject the offer.

If they keep insisting then you can see that you are sorry to disappoint them but
you have had enough

and you will be happy just to have water and continue the conversation.

Remember once you are polite and you do not abuse or criticize others they will
find it easier to accept

your rejection and will eventually leave you alone.

If you still feel that it's improper to treat a friend like this then ask yourself
whether it's true

and care and friend should try to persuade you to go against your will.

So what is the moral find to such situations in your everyday life and use them to
practice and your

brain will learn and become more comfortable when seen no this will make it easier
for you to assert

yourself in more serious and professional situations.

Remember assertiveness is also the art of say no in the right way in a way that
will not put a stain

on the relationship.

Even though I have given it examples there are innumerable situations out there in
the real world we

are passive or aggressive behavior lead to dissatisfaction discomfort or even

animosity.

So please do me a huge favor delve into your past and find at least one situation
in which you thought

your reaction was inappropriate.

Start a discussion by outlining your story.

Tell us how you handled it then and how differently you would be here today
considering that you have

completed this course and now have more awareness of how to be more assertive.

Remember by providing your examples you will be helping others to get a better
understanding of assertiveness.

And in this way it will improve the quality of their relationship with Otter's in
both private and professional

circumstances.

It's a win win situation but someone needs to start.

I would like you to be a first to initiate a discussion.

[BONUS] How I Beat Diabetes Using Self-Improvement Techniques

There is a great possibility that many of you reading this article are afflicted
with diabetes. If not, it could still be in its early stages of development and
will sooner or later emerge. However, if you happen to be the lucky one not
burdened with this disease, then please share this article with your families,
friends and colleagues at work, because life examples reach the mind faster and
stimulate reaction. Please note that I am not a nutritionist, diabetologist or any
kind of specialist engaged in diabetes research. I am simply a medical practitioner
and self-improvement trainer who has used his knowledge to escape from the claws of
diabetes.

Considering that all my Udemy courses are related to self-improvement, I have

decided to include this article as a supplement to each course. I will prove to you
that you can achieve your goals once you have the right mindset and follow the
right path.

One year ago I took a blood test and my fasting glucose was 128 mg/dl (7.1 mmol/L).
As this was far beyond the norm of 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/L), I underwent the oral
glucose tolerance test to measure my body’s response to glucose. After forcing that
syrupy solution down my throat, I comforted myself on the sofa reserved for such
patients and waited two hours before my blood glucose was measured again.

Then came the verdict.

My glucose level had rocketed to 276 mg/dl (15.3 mmol/L), which was a clear
indication of diabetes. As I am not the kind of person to panic easily, I got into
my car and on my way back home, I had a loud discussion between me, myself and I.
Just the three of us and nobody else.

I even remember that at one point I mentioned to myself that I should log into
Udemy and watch one of my own self-improvement courses, be it Self-Discipline
Hacks, The Power of Motivation or The Secret to Success. Sometimes, you simply need
a kick-start or an eye-opener to motivate you to initiate changes in your life.
Anyway, the final decision me, myself and I had come to during the monologue was
that I should make an appointment to see a diabetologist as soon as possible. I was
hoping that a renowned specialist would bring some harmony to the chaos.

The initial reason for taking the blood glucose test was related to excessive
sleepiness, especially after a solid meal. And it’s easy for you to guess that the
meals consisted of a large quantity of refined carbohydrates: white rice, white
bread, macaroni, potatoes, cakes, compote, coca cola, chocolate and many other
delicious things that the brain loves so much.

The drowsiness continued for quite a long period of time and was accompanied with
immoderate sleep during the night, reaching an average of 10 to 12 hours. I went to
bed tired and woke up tired. My belly began bulging out shamelessly and the buttons
of my shirt became engaged in a permanent battle to keep it hidden. As the fat
underneath my shirt buttons got bigger, I started to snore and began getting
nightly heartburn, which soon became a nuisance. The snoring became so intense that
I could literally hear myself disturbing myself during my sleep.

Even though the symptoms spoke for themselves, I had kept putting off making the
decision to control my glucose level. You see, I am also guilty of procrastinating
and the reason is related to not wanting to find out the truth. I believe that this
example would fit rather well in my “How to Stop Procrastinating & Get Things Done”
course.

During the consultation at the diabetes center, I was bombarded with questions
regarding my diet, lifestyle and the characteristics of my work environment.
However, after analyzing the blood results, I was officially diagnosed with type 2
diabetes and metformin was prescribed. I got my glucometer, diabetes test strips
and my medication and got down to seriously pep talking myself into Not Taking The
Medication.

I looked at the metformin and asked myself whether I wanted medicine to dictate my
life. I asked myself if I was mentally weak to allow the pharmaceutical industry to
solve my issue, my dietetic deviation. The answer to both questions was a blunt
“No”. It was then that I decided to regain control of my life.

I started by envisioning all the consequences of diabetes and what my life would
look like in a few years. Believe me, the consequences in my mind’s eye were
devastating. I pictured the high blood sugar causing damage to my blood vessels,
causing kidney disorder that might lead to dialysis, eye problems resulting in
blindness, foot ulcers, fungal infection, heart disease, stroke, and dementia. I
saw myself getting bigger around the waistline, hence losing my masculinity. I
pictured myself becoming more and more phlegmatic and having to endure a life of
misery. I created these pictures in my mind’s eye and could literally feel the pain
that they aroused.

Afterwards, I envisioned myself taking action, overpowering my diabetes and

regaining control of my physical and mental well-being. And that was the beginning
of a new era for me. As I have mentioned in my courses, you need to link extreme
pain to the things that you do not want. So, if you want to cure yourself from a
disease or personal inadequacy, then link as much pain as possible to the impact of
the disease or deficiency. In my case, it was diabetes. In your case, it could be
obesity, excessive usage of alcohol, smoking, procrastination, speaking in front of
an audience or simply failure to achieve success at work. After that, simply link
as much pleasure to having overcome that bad situation, and this will provide the
driving force to move forward and conquer the obstacles.
Before I describe how I managed diabetes, let me briefly introduce to you the
basics of type 2 diabetes.

When we consume food, carbohydrates are converted into glucose, which is absorbed
into the bloodstream. The higher the glycemic index of the food, the faster the
conversion rate and hence the higher the level of blood glucose. The beta cells of
the pancreas secrete insulin that transports glucose into our cells for energy, but
also converts glucose into glycogen, which is stored in the liver and muscles.
Conversely, when we don’t eat, the insulin level drops and the body will then burn
some of the sugar to get energy, i.e. glycogen is converted into glucose that will
be used for energy.

Now, imagine yourself consciously or unconsciously dumping tons and tons of

carbohydrates into your body. Obviously, the pancreas will produce more and more
insulin to get the sugar out of your blood and into the cells. Now, consider that
your blood sugar level continues to increase over a long period of time due to this
high and constant intake of carbohydrates. In this case, your liver cell will not
be able to accept more glucose. It’s like trying to pack more bags into your car
trunk that is already jam-packed. Even if you use more force to push in yet another
bag, it will not work. It is the same with the liver cells. They cannot take in any
more sugar. The level of insulin in your blood continues to rise to counteract the
high concentration of glucose and this in turn stimulates a process called “de novo
lipogenesis” that changes the excessive carbohydrates into fat, which is stored in
the liver cells, and other parts of the body, especially around the belly.

As time goes by, the fatty liver cells become more and more resistant to insulin
and will therefore refuse to accept more glucose. Enough is enough. This leads to
an increased blood glucose. The beta cells of the pancreas now become more engaged
in the fight to reduce the increasing blood glucose by secreting more and more
insulin and the body gets trapped in a vicious cycle. This vicious cycle can
continue for years. However, there comes a time when the fatty liver needs to free
itself of all this fat. It does so by transporting some of it to other organs, for
example, the pancreas. And this is when the problem becomes serious.

The pancreas is now congested with fat and its beta cells begin to malfunction. As
a result, they are unable to secrete the adequate amount of insulin. The blood
insulin drops and it becomes even more difficult to reduce the blood sugar level.
The blood glucose remains at a high level and you are diagnosed with type 2
diabetes. When the blood glucose abnormal level exceeds the renal threshold for
glucose (around 180 mg/dl), the kidneys begin to evacuate glucose via frequent and
immoderate urination. Excessive blood glucose also pulls water from your tissues,
making you feel dehydrated. The brain is then notified and react by causing extreme
thirst. It is the dryness in the mouth, extreme thirst and frequent urination that
trigger us to visit the doctor.

The good news is that the process leading to type 2 diabetes does not take place
overnight. The phase when the pancreas tries to counterbalance high levels of
glucose by producing more insulin may last many years. However, eventually, the
liver cells become saturated with glucose and fat. After that, it’s just a matter
of time before the pancreas becomes clogged with fat and its beta cells start to
malfunction.

As I understood the mechanism of diabetes, I realized that if I consumed less

carbohydrates, then it would be impossible for my blood glucose to rise above the
norm. Furthermore, if I exercised more often, then I would be burning glycogen and
then fat to acquire energy. I looked at the issue at hand in a very simplistic way.
With this in mind, I began to explore the Internet and that was when I stumbled on
intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting is basically the process of not eating for a longer period of
time than usual. In a normal everyday situation, we would have our last meal at
around 7 p.m. in the evening and then have breakfast the next day between 7 and 8
a.m. This means that we are breaking our fast after 12 or 13 hours and we usually
do so with a big meal. I chose the 16/8 intermittent fasting technique. I had my
last meal at around 6.30 p.m. in the evening and my first meal of the next day at
10.30 a.m., which means that my stomach, liver, pancreas and other organs went on a
16-hour vacation every day. Of course, my last meal of the day contained fats and
proteins, but less carbohydrates. Not only was I having less carbohydrates, but I
was giving my body ample time to take care of things. In addition, the fat was also
slowing down the absorption of carbohydrates, which made things easier.

During the morning hours when I was still in the fasting process, I would drink
coffee, green tea and water. Actually, it became my habit to drink green tea and
plenty of water during the day. When I broke my fast, I would simply have a
teaspoon of coconut oil because I knew that I shouldn’t bombard my organs right
away with too much food, especially refined carbohydrates. I would then have my
real breakfast one hour after having consumed the coconut oil. During the day, I
would make sure that my intake of calories was sufficient for my weight, but would
restrict the amount of carbohydrates. In fact, I consumed food and drinks that had
a low glycemic index and stayed away from those with a high glycemic index.

In addition to fasting, I also began exercising regularly, so whatever I ate was

converted into energy. In fact, when I exercised around the 13th hour of my 16-hour
fasting, I had more energy than when exercising after meals.

In due time, the fat around my waist retreated and eventually disappeared,
releasing the burden on my shirt buttons.

Please, don’t get me wrong. I have also had my ups and downs during my battle with
diabetes and my glucose level would rise when the intake of carbohydrates was
inappropriate. In such situations, I would simply discipline myself and ride my
exercise bike for 30 minutes, walk on the treadmill or use my wife’s hula hoop. I
have become a hula hoop specialist and can go on interminably without it falling
down.

In addition to a low carb diet and intermittent fasting, I tricked my brain. I made
it my duty to monitor my blood glucose. I checked it as soon as I woke up in the
morning, then just before breaking my fast, after each meal, after exercising, and
just before going to bed. I developed the habit of religiously checking how the
blood glucose level would change in different situations. By developing the habit
of checking, I automatically developed the desire to get better results, and this
in turn served as a motivational factor to do the right things. My brain was
eagerly anticipating a good blood glucose level, so it was willing to make the
effort to get it. I consciously made my subconscious mind understand that if I
fasted for 16 hours, consumed less carbs, did frequent workout, then I would regain
my health. It became a habit. Once an action turns into a habit, success is
inevitable.

There is one specific thing about fasting that I really love and it’s the fact that
I actually do not feel hungry in the morning and there is no feeling of discomfort.
Also, when I wake up in the morning, I do not have to waste time to prepare and eat
breakfast and then wash up after. I have so much time for myself. I can relax and
savor my coffee. I also use this extra time to exercise and observe the great
results in front of the mirror. Fasting is not only convenient but also extremely
effective.
After using the above mentioned technique, my fasting glucose decreased within a
few weeks. At first, it fluctuated between 115 and 100 mg/dl, depending on how much
carbohydrate I had eaten the night before. Eventually, it went below 100 and
fluctuated between 90 and 95 mg/dl, depending on how disciplined I was the previous
day. During the day, it never exceeded the 139 mg/dl limit (measured two hours
after meals). In fact, it sometimes went below 110 mg/dl after meals, especially
after a good workout at the gym. The explanation for the drop in blood sugar level
is simple. I diligently controlled my intake of carbohydrates and burned my fat
through exercise. As a result, the fat on my liver started to shrink (confirmed by
liver ultrasound test) and my liver cells became more sensitive to insulin. My
fatty pancreas is functioning more effectively at the moment by secreting enough
insulin to manage the blood glucose. I can therefore deduce that it is not as
clogged up with fat as it used to be in the past. I was able to reverse the vicious
circle and bring back my physiology.

Does it mean that I will never be haunted by diabetes? No way!

One wrong step is enough to take me back on that path towards self-destruction.
This is why I will keep on keeping on with my fasting, workouts and low-carb diet.
There is one last thing that I need to add. I have not only suppressed diabetes. I
have sculptured a fairly good looking physique at the age of 54. I have lost around
15 % of my body weight and during the process I have replaced irrelevant fat with
muscle mass. The heartburn has disappeared. I do not snore anymore, nor do I fall
asleep in front of the TV. I feel more relaxed and my power of concentration has
markedly increased. Even though I have been suffering from allergic asthma for many
years, I have noticed great improvements of my asthma symptoms. I believe this
could be connected to the better diet I have been on, as well as my good physical
shape and stamina. I truly believe that my encounter with type 2 diabetes was a
blessing in disguise.

If you have reached this point, then it means that you have completed the whole
article. I do hope you now have the motivation to take the appropriate steps to
manage not only diabetes, but your health on the whole, as well as your personal
deficiency. I used my knowledge of self-discipline and self-motivation to put
diabetes in its place.

Remember, life is too short to be wasted. If I could do it, then you can do it.

It is without doubt easier to dump whatever is in sight into your poor stomach and
then take your medication and let them fight it out inside your body. This may
temporarily solve the problem, but in the long run the long arms of diabetes will
reach you.

The typical patient with type 2 diabetes is overweight, with fat distributed around
the waistline. They lead a sedentary life style, eat a lot and have a sweet tooth.
After a hectic day with refined carbohydrates, they would seek comfort and clean
their conscience by reaching for their medication. They do not stop to think of the
toxicity caused by medication because the consumption of refined carbohydrates is
too irresistible. After devouring all their drug, they would have it replenished
and the cycle continues until things get out of control.

What is the moral? Make it your duty to shape your future by properly managing your
health. You are the only one who spends 24/7 in your own company, so make it
worthwhile.

Overview
Q&A
Bookmarks
Announcements
---------------------------------------------------------course
4--------------------------------------------------------------

Heads brandin from insider school dot com.

And welcome to this mini course on time management insight.

I want to share with you seven specific things you can do immediately to become
more productive and

get more out of every day.

Real quick let me tell you how this course came to be when I was in college I was
getting two educations

at the same time.

The first was by professors and the second was by the world's smartest people.

And it all happened because I started reading books in college was actually one
book and I was so frustrated

that everything inside was pretty much the opposite of what I was learning in my
classes so I went to

the dean's office and said I feel like I'm getting an outdated education and she
said we're working

on it.

And the point is that the education system that we go through is broken.

We don't learn the right things we're not taught the right way and we can't afford
it even if we can

and money we can't afford all the time we're putting in it and not putting in
learning other things

that really matter.

That's why I really started reading a lot of books now over a thousand.

Since January 2012 and I've discovered that anyone who has excelled in any area of
life spent their

entire life discovering things we never learned in school and instead of learning
these things in school

that we can apply to our life immediately.

We memorize facts so we can write them on a piece of paper.

The first real take I just wanted to share with you right here is that I believe
that a real education

comes from application not memorization.

That's why I made insider school dot com which is all about learning the things
these people discovered

in a way you can apply to your life.

And that's also why I wanted to make this course because one of the things we're
never taught in school

is time management.

That's why I originally made my full course on time management called How to double
your productivity

by tomorrow morning.

What I wanted to do here just to share this with even more people is share with you
seven specific things

from that course that you can apply immediately to get a result.

Also you can probably tell I'm obsessed with learning things you'll never learn in
school.

I spend a ton of time reading and as a free bonus to this course I want to share
with you the actionable

takeaways from the best books I read in real time.

If I read an amazing book tomorrow about negotiation or persuasion or time

management or health relationship

success or anything that I think you'll really like I'll send you an email every
week or two and it's

100 percent free.

Just want to add more value to you through this course to join.

Just go to insider school dot com slash many time.

So thanks for joining the course.

I'm so excited to share this with you.

Let's start by completely redefining what managing your time well means.

One of my greatest teachers in life has been Seneca who was a Roman philosopher who
died 2000 years

ago.

And I wanted to share something with you in this video that he said in his book on
the shortness of

life that redefines how you look at your time.

This is what he said he said it is not that we have a short time to live but that
we waste a lot of

it.
He said Life is long enough and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us
for the highest

achievements.

If it were all well invested.

This is a quote that I really thought a lot about and not even just the whole thing
but particularly

the last two words well invested what does it mean for your time to be well
invested.

We all spend time.

We all use time.

We all waste time but think about it.

How many people invest their time well just like somebody invest their money they
put it in the stock

market they put it in real estate they invest in assets people that manage their
time well invest their

time.

That means they spend their time in things that will pay them or return either
immediately or in the

future.

In either wisdom in health in money and relationships and peace of mind in

something tangible that they

can get.

And this redefines time management time management is not managing time.

So you can compartmentalize things.

It's not using times you get everything done in a day.

It means you invest your time in a way that will give you a return.

Anything that doesn't give you return is time wasted.

Anything that does is time management that's the framework I want to give you in
this course and I hope

you can start looking at time as something that is to be invested and not just
something that needs

to be used.

In the next section I want to share with you the seven specific things that you can
do to become more
productive.

Take it from my course how to double your productivity by tomorrow morning.

Before I do I want to share with you a big time management obstacle that I want you
to avoid and how

avoiding this is a major key to you having the productivity that you want in the
obstacle.

It's having to think in real time it's having to think the day of what is it that
I'm going to work

on.

If you're always thinking what do I need to be doing next what do I need to be

doing now then first

of all it's a huge drain of mental energy.

We only have a limited amount of willpower we only have a limited amount of mental
capacity and for

wasting it on what do I need to do now or what do I need to do next.

You're taking away energy that could be used to do productive things.

But also it's a huge waste of time because all these things can be figured out
beforehand.

So the answer is rituals.

The answer is routine.

The answer is having a framework that your day is set up in and a framework for
what you work on that

gives you predictable returns.

So you don't have to think about those things and then your only job is executing
the framework not

every day building a new framework from scratch.

For example I've spent months maybe even years refining my framework and because of
that I know what

my morning looks like.

I know what my afternoon looks like.

I know what I'm going to be working on and I know what work gives me the highest
return.

And some people even told me Look that's boring you can't live in routine and maybe
there's some truth

to that but there's more truth in the fact that routine brings freedom.
Think about this.

Think about someone who wants to use an axe to chop down a tree.

If that person goes and hits the axe against a tree one time that won't do
anything.

They need to do it over and over and over at the same place at the same tree to
have any result.

And that's what a framework is the opposite of that is hitting one tree and then
moving to another tree

and moving to another tree moving to another tree which is how most people use
their time especially

when they come up with a new framework every time.

So I really encourage you to come up with a ritual come up with a framework you can
use that will give

you the highest return on your time that will give you a predictable return on your
time.

And that's what these seven things that I want to share with you are all about
that's what the rest

of the Course is devoted to.

So let's jump right into it.

---------------------------------------------------------------section
2-------------------------------------------
The most important ritual you can put in place is your morning ritual because if
you get up in the morning

and do things to get you feeling great.

To make the most out of the day ahead you'll be way more productive that day.

Imagine the difference between that and your alarm just going off in the morning
snoozing three times

rolling out of bed eating something quickly and then heading out the door in a half
days when you have

a morning ritual you get fired up and in the right mindset to go after what you
want to get done that

day.

For this reason alone it's a must.

The time you invest by doing this first instead of jumping straight to work will
pay you huge returns

in productivity.

But there is an even more important reason to do this.

You see how El Rod who wrote the book the miracle morning which is all about
setting up a morning ritual

said that we think to achieve more we need to do more.

But in reality to achieve more we need to become more.

When you become more you achieve more by doing less.

So the even more important benefit of your morning ritual is personal development.

You're investing that time not just for the day but for your life.

It's like Jim rhône the great speaker said income seldom exceeds personal
development.

Success is something you attract by the person you become.

So you want to invest this first part of the day in things that get you in the
right state of mind and

things that have done again and again help you become the person you can become.

Here's how Howell El Raad recommends breaking your morning ritual down.

He describes it by the acronym saver's.

He says to start by some sort of silence or meditation.

First off to get centered and then affirmations followed by visualization exercise
reading and Scriabin

which is a fancy word for writing in a journal.

Now you don't have to do all of these things but here is what I'd recommend doing
as a bare minimum.

Firstly exercise you want to invest this time in getting strong healthy and more
importantly feeling

awake and energized for the day ahead.

This can be walking out the door and going for a walk.

It could be 10 minutes on a rebounder or it could be a full workout but even just

10 to 20 minutes first

thing in the morning is enough.

Next is reading your purpose outloud with enthusiasm.

You've written down your purpose and now you want to remind yourself and not only
remind yourself but

get excited about going after your vision and your purpose that day.

And lastly visualize you want to visualize a scene where you've achieved your
purpose and you want to
play that movie in your mind but also visualize your day ahead.

Visualize the day going perfectly visualize how you're going to be productive
visualize how you're going

to go about getting everything done and how you're going to avoid distractions.

Roy Williams who wrote the book The Wizard of bad said that the first step to doing
something is seeing

it in your mind and whatever you want to get done for the day see yourself doing it
as part of your

ritual.

Now also ask yourself Is there anything else that you want to add that will help
you toward being the

person you want to become.

I do recommend starting as simple as possible but if there is something else you

want to add added in

there as well and then most importantly write it down and start tomorrow morning.

The most important thing I learned in college wasn't anything I learned in class it
was how I learned

to study because while everyone else spent hours studying while checking Facebook
and going on their

phones I would get in the zone.

You see in the book phloem Hailie chick Setna Holly talks about the psychology of
optimal experience.

He talks about the state of being fully engaged in what you're doing where you feel
like you lose sense

of time and where the work you do feels effortless.

And he calls this the flow state.

Other people sometimes call it getting in the zone but can you see how being in
that state would exponentially

increase your productivity.

The problem is most of us rarely experience it.

And if we do it by accident but assuming you're working on something that excites

you like we talked

about earlier the biggest key to getting in this state is working in chunks of
uninterrupted time.

That means picking one and only one thing to work on putting your phone on Do Not
Disturb which I do
or turning it off and working for a predefined amount of time giving it all your
mental power with zero

interruptions and zero multitasking.

This one simple thing is the biggest game changer for productivity.

Peter Drucker who's the most famous management thinker ever recommended working in
chunks of two hours

at a time or more.

But you don't have to go to that extreme.

What is important though is that you do work in chunks of uninterrupted time.

I personally work in chunks of either 50 minutes at a time or 90 minutes at a time.

But let's just keep this simple.

So first of all buy an electronic timer.

You want to start working by the clock.

And if you use your phone as a timer that's not an option because that would just
be a distraction you'll

check your phone you'll see you have this text.

Let me respond and so and so you don't want to do that next decide a pre-determined
amount of time that

you're going to work in you can do 50 minutes with 10 minute breaks you can do 90
minutes with 20 or

30 minute breaks or something else.

For now let's just start with 45 minutes straight.

And with 15 minute breaks just to get started you can then change this amount of
time at any point for

however long it makes sense for you.

But I'd rather start with less time straight since most people usually interrupt
themselves about every

three minutes when they work.

And by the way there was a study that showed it takes over 23 minutes to get back
in the zone after

an interruption assuming you were in the zone in the first place.

So that really goes to show how important it is to really get in the zone and stay
in the zone not interrupting

yourself and not letting anybody else interrupt you as well you really need to
defend this time and

cut off all possible distractions namely e-mail phone or anybody who could
potentially interrupt you.

So when you start working for the day commit to working by the timer put 45 minutes
on the timer and

work for 45 minutes straight.

And then when that's done put the timer 15 minutes and take a 15 minute break.

When you work you should work on things by the way that will pay you a return in
your work life.

But what about during your breaks.

You see most people their idea of a break is let me go on Facebook or do something
that pays no return.

But you really want your brakes to be high quality.

You can even go so far to say that the quality of your work is determined by the
quality of your break

because unless you feel refreshed and enthusiastic you're not going to be able to
give it your all when

you work.

So if you invest this breaktime in things that make you feel refreshed and more
importantly even maybe

investing this time to again become the person you can be like how l RA talked
about you making the

best use of this time.

So maybe for one of these breaks for example you meditate maybe for another you go
for a walk.

We'll talk about organizing all your breaks in real time and so forth a little bit
later.

But the real takeaway I want you to get is this Most people are extremely
unproductive because they

don't go full force with their work and then they don't go full force with their
breaks either when

they're working.

They're sneaking in interruptions and breaks and when they're taking a break
they're thinking about

work and the result is they can't think straight.

They don't have the energy they need to do their best and they don't get that much
done but by oscillating
between a give it your all get in the zone an interrupted chunk of time and then a
give it your all

feel completely refreshed break you'll feel more clear you'll get in the flow
state.

And if you work for even half the time that you did before you'll get more done
because ultimately you

see people talk about oh I worked 10 hours or 12 hours or all these long days but
it doesn't matter

how long you work for hours worked isn't the measure for productivity.

The real measure is how much you've gotten done regardless of how long it takes to
decide how long you

want to work in get an electronic timer and make sure you start doing this and see
what a huge difference

it makes.

This you're now working in chunks of uninterrupted time.

The question is What do you work on in those chunks of time.

And the answer is really simple you work on things that move you measurably closer
toward your goals.

These can be things that you do every day on a regular basis or things that change
based on what you're

working on.

But the key word there is measurably.

You always need to be asking yourself is what I'm doing right now.

Just going to solidify the results I already have or do nothing for me.

Or is it going to measurably move me closer or is it actually going to help me get

some sort of result.

And I like to call this stuff 10 x stuff you want to work on at 10 x stuff.

So stuff that will make you money or get you some sort of result.

You see Peter Drucker the management think when we talked about said that business
has only two functions.

Marketing and innovation.

Everything else is a cost.

And likewise when you work there are only one two or maybe three things that will
give you some sort

of result.
If it's business then again those two things are marketing and innovation and
everything else is not

an investment of your time but it costs.

So you want to stop seeing yourself as being productive for doing these things that
are in reality a

cost that we fail to realize that that's what they are.

So I really want you to think about right now what are the high activity 10 x
things in your life and

in your business.

And as you continue doing this and you continue working in chunks of uninterrupted
time make sure to

not get distracted by costs.

Try to delegate costs as much as possible or at least work on them.

At the end of the day you want to focus your most productive time the most
important time on 10 x things.

So keep that in mind really ask yourself what are the activities that pay me the
highest returns.

So the question is what moves you measurably closer to your goals and the only way
to really answer

that is by making a plan beforehand.

You want to make a step by step plan for your major goals and getting through that
plan is what you

do during your pre-scheduled time and something else that's really important is you
want to make sure

that everything on that plan is really getting you measurably closer.

Because a lot of the time we put steps on there that don't move us in a straight
line forward but they

move us just a little bit forward.

But a lot to the left or the right just tangentially so to speak.

And you really want to demand a 10 x return on every step you put on your plan.

And by the way your plan could change you could expand but you really just want to
have something to

start with.

And then the other thing you want to do is you want to make goals for your week
just so you have certain
milestones to hit every week.

The way I do this is I have a friend we talk every week.

We're very much on the same wavelength working on similar things and we have our
little mastermind session

then.

And at the end of it we share our goals for the week.

So that's the time that I set my goals for the week and write it down.

And the third component to really planning what you want to do or daily to do's.

So you have your overall plan you have your goals for the week just the milestones
that you want to

hit to move you closer.

And also you want daily to do's and here's the shocker as far as your daily to do
list.

Ideally it should be only one thing.

The more things it is that that means the smaller things you are working on the
less likely any of those

things are 10 x things.

And if you have to do a bunch of small things that's fine.

But first pick the one thing that really is going to pay you the return and do all
those smaller things

at the end of the day.

You see you've probably heard of the 80:20 principle that 80 percent of your
results come from 20 percent

of the things that you do.

Can even take that further and just demand what is the one thing that I can do
today that will give

me the biggest return.

You see Gary Keller talks about this in his book.

The one thing he says to ask yourself what's the one thing I could do such that
doing it will make everything

else unnecessary.

Or another way you can ask yourself the same thing is what's the one thing I could
do such that doing

it will give me the highest return for the time invested.

That really is the question to determine what is on your quote unquote to do list.

And while we're on the topic there is something else I want to share with you which
is probably the

most important thing I can share with you as far as time management goes is the
reason it seems like

there isn't enough time to do everything you want to do isn't because there is so
much to do.

The reality is that time management could be so easy that you would have too much
free time.

You wouldn't know what to do with.

So why does it seem like there is never enough time to do the things you want to
do.

And ironically the answer is laziness or avoidance of fear.

It's like Robert Kiyosaki the number one New York Times bestselling author said.

He said that staying busy is laziness because you stay busy to avoid something you
don't want to face.

Or Tim Ferriss adds on to this idea by saying that instead of focusing on the two
or three things we

need to do that will make us productive or contribute to our goals.

We invent things to do to keep us busy so busy that there isn't enough time left
for those two or three

things we should do the things you don't want to face.

The solution then according to Tim Ferriss is to ask yourself frequently and by
inventing things to

do to avoid the important.

Or as Randy Pausch the famous professor at Carnegie Mellon said in his lecture on
time management asking

yourself do I really need to do this.

You want to catch yourself avoiding the important and stop being lazy and you'll
create way more free

time and get way more done.

So when it comes to making a plan when it comes to your weekly goals and your daily
to do list I want

you to keep this in mind I really want you to think about what are the two or three
things that will

really contribute that will move me in a straight line toward my goals and also
keep in mind that often
these things push us out of our comfort zone.

They are uncomfortable.

There are things that we might feel at and that's why we don't want to face them.

But if you really want to be productive if you really want to achieve your goals
not only in the shortest

amount of time possible but maybe ever then you're going to have to face these
things so you really

want to keep this in mind when making your plans.

So really think about this and really try to organize what you work on by first
having plans having

goals and also having daily to do's and ideally focusing on only one and if need be
two things.

Most people spend a lot of their time on other people's things whether it's through
email answering

phone calls or just doing things that other people need from them and they feel
productive about it.

But in reality it's a lie.

Let's talk about that in a second.

But first think about this which is also from Seneca.

He said that men do not let anyone sees their estates but they allow others to
encroach on their lives

why they themselves even invite in those who will take over their lives.

You will find no one willing to share out his money but to how many does each of us
divide up his life.

People are frugal in guarding their personal property.

But as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing
in which it is right

to be stingy.

And that brings us to what I call the other 80 20 rule.

You see you've probably heard the 80:20 rule that 80 percent of your results come
from 20 percent of

the work.

Lot of people talk about these days.

But the other 80 20 rule that is as important is that you want to spend at least 80
percent of your
time on yourself on 10x things and then only the remainder 20 percent or the
remainder a little bit

on things other people demand a view on things that essentially don't help you move
toward your goals.

But maybe they have to get done anyway.

There's actually a famous time management theory called the pickle jar theory which
is kind of similar

so if you imagine a pickle jar Let's say you have four things that need to go in
that jar Let's say

you have rocks pebbles sand and water.

If you fill up the jar with just water then there is no room for the other three
things.

But if you start with first the big rocks and then the pebbles and then the sand
and then the water

you'll be able to fit all of it in the jar and the same thing with your time you
want to not only spend

the majority of it on yourself and on important things and on things that move
immeasurably closer to

your goal but you want to do it first.

You do that in two ways.

First of all you want to devote at the very least the first three big chunks of
time to yourself.

You get up you do your ritual you have some breakfast which could be part of your
ritual and then you

go to work on yourself.

You don't spend time answering emails you don't spend time doing things that people
have asked of you

spend those first three chunks of time on things that move you measurably closer.

And then what you can do is schedule a fourth chunk of time that is scheduled and
devoted specifically

to doing all those other things all at once.

And when you schedule a chunk of time to do all those things you're then chunking
all these things together

you're chunking all the things you have to do.

Whether you're getting them done all at once and you're doing it really efficiently
whereas if you were
to spread those out throughout the day those could have taken the entire day.

So again it's really simple but it's extremely important.

Do your ritual and schedule the first three chunks of time to important things and
then schedule a fourth

chunk where you clump all those things together that you need to take care of but
that don't really

add value to your life that don't give you a return on your investment.

Now you know everything you need to know to be way more productive.

Now let's put it all together.

So what I'd like to do is put together an excel sheet like the one you see here to
see how well I'm

doing on implementing these things that we talked about and more importantly to
encourage myself to

do that and I think that it would be really helpful for you to do the same.

So let me walk you through this really quickly.

It's broken down into two things.

The morning ritual and your work ritual the two things we talked about obviously in
each of these things

you can do whatever you want to do whatever works best for you this is just the
template that I wanted

to share with you.

Like we talked about starting with exercise or a walk than reading your purpose
then visualization and

something else that I think would be really helpful is reading you know something
we talked about in

my course become a learning machine which is all about reading at least 100 books
in a year is creating

a reading ritual and this is something that you can do by putting it in your excel
sheet as well.

And then for your work rituals you can break it down into how many minutes work
best for you.

Again this is just a template but if you want to do 45 minutes in a 15 minute break
and then 45 and

then have a lunch break or just another 15 minute break and so on and then you see
here the fourth chunk

of time is devoted to doing those things that don't move you measurably closer to
your goal but you
have to do maybe it's email maybe it's errands or whatever it is and doing it all
at once.

Maybe you could do two of those chunks of time if you really needed.

Maybe you want to do more chunks of uninterrupted time.

Whatever works best for you.

What I've done here is put all seven days of the week.

You can just do five days a week just to six days a week it's really up to you.

Anyway I've put this Excel sheet in the resources section of this video so download
it modify it for

however works best for what you want to do and start using it.

Put a checkmark next to everything that you wish.

Build the momentum.

And also you'll be able to look back and see how well you're doing.

By the way I think one reason this is so powerful is it helps you build these
habits.

You know when Jerry Seinfeld had a goal that he wanted to write jokes for a full
year for 365 days year

he printed a huge calendar put it on his wall and every day that he did it he put a
check mark on that

day and this is essentially what you're doing by making an excel sheet like this as
well.

Now let's finish putting everything together.

So this is a second excel sheet that I recommend you use and here's how it works.

The point of it is for you to write down the measurable things that you get done
every day.

This is going to keep you honest so to speak it's going to make sure that you're
actually spending your

time on things that matter.

Something Peter Drucker talked about in his book The effective executive is keeping
track of your time

and seeing how much of it is actually put to productive use.

And this is kind of a twist on that instead of keeping track of your time keeping
track of how much

of what you've done is moving you measurably closer to your goal.

And this is a couple of things.

First of all it keeps you focused on doing things that move you measurably closer.

And second of all it gives you a feedback loop that you can go back to and be OK on
January 1st.

Wow I only got that one thing done.

I thought I was so busy I got felt like I got all those things done.

But in reality this was the only thing I got done that moves me measurably closer
to my goals.

Let's start filling this in here's how it works.

You've already written down your goals.

So you write down your goals here on the top and the milestones for each goal that
you're working on.

And then here every week.

Write the goals you have for the week and what I do here is I write the projects
I'm working on within

each goal.

So for a goal what I'm working on you know if it corresponds Maybe it's just the
same thing but if there

are different projects you'll write the projects here.

And then within each one you write the progress that you made that day.

And again don't write things like OK responded to these people's emails or I made
these phone calls.

What are the things again that move you measurably closer.

So fill this in every day.

And by the way here's how I personally use this that you can do as well.

Instead of two goals here I have my purpose here.

So let me put that in there.

But I have two separate projects that are moving me toward that bigger goal.

So all right.

Project 1 and project 2 and then I'll write the milestones for each one and so
forth.

And lastly what I've done is made another version of that.

So you can print out for weeks at a time before you start using this just want to
point one more thing

out and that is that this is built like a hierarchy.

You see you have your goals here and then under the goals what are the steps that
you're going to need

hit along that and then going down one step further.

What are the goals this week that are going to move you toward those milestones or
at least toward that

first milestone.

And then you put in what are those things that are going to move you toward the
week goals to move toward

the milestones that are going to move you toward the goals.

Take these three Excel sheets.

Fill in the missing pieces.

Print them out and then fill them in every day as you get things done.

Let these be your guide to being productive to investing your time and time moving
measurably closer

toward your goals.

I hope these two tools are as helpful for you as they have been for me and I hope
you get a lot out

of them.

Most people spend a lot of their time on other people's things whether it's through
email answering

phone calls or just doing things that other people need from them and they feel
productive about it.

But in reality it's a lie.

Let's talk about that in a second.

But first think about this which is also from Seneca.

He said that men do not let anyone sees their estates but they allow others to
encroach on their lives

why they themselves even invite in those who will take over their lives.

You will find no one willing to share out his money but to how many does each of us
divide up his life.

People are frugal in guarding their personal property.

But as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing
in which it is right
to be stingy.

And that brings us to what I call the other 80 20 rule.

You see you've probably heard the 80:20 rule that 80 percent of your results come
from 20 percent of

the work.

Lot of people talk about these days.

But the other 80 20 rule that is as important is that you want to spend at least 80
percent of your

time on yourself on 10x things and then only the remainder 20 percent or the
remainder a little bit

on things other people demand a view on things that essentially don't help you move
toward your goals.

But maybe they have to get done anyway.

There's actually a famous time management theory called the pickle jar theory which
is kind of similar

so if you imagine a pickle jar Let's say you have four things that need to go in
that jar Let's say

you have rocks pebbles sand and water.

If you fill up the jar with just water then there is no room for the other three
things.

But if you start with first the big rocks and then the pebbles and then the sand
and then the water

you'll be able to fit all of it in the jar and the same thing with your time you
want to not only spend

the majority of it on yourself and on important things and on things that move
immeasurably closer to

your goal but you want to do it first.

You do that in two ways.

First of all you want to devote at the very least the first three big chunks of
time to yourself.

You get up you do your ritual you have some breakfast which could be part of your
ritual and then you

go to work on yourself.

You don't spend time answering emails you don't spend time doing things that people
have asked of you

spend those first three chunks of time on things that move you measurably closer.
And then what you can do is schedule a fourth chunk of time that is scheduled and
devoted specifically

to doing all those other things all at once.

And when you schedule a chunk of time to do all those things you're then chunking
all these things together

you're chunking all the things you have to do.

Whether you're getting them done all at once and you're doing it really efficiently
whereas if you were

to spread those out throughout the day those could have taken the entire day.

So again it's really simple but it's extremely important.

Do your ritual and schedule the first three chunks of time to important things and
then schedule a fourth

chunk where you clump all those things together that you need to take care of but
that don't really

add value to your life that don't give you a return on your investment.

Now let's finish putting everything together.

So this is a second excel sheet that I recommend you use and here's how it works.

The point of it is for you to write down the measurable things that you get done
every day.

This is going to keep you honest so to speak it's going to make sure that you're
actually spending your

time on things that matter.

Something Peter Drucker talked about in his book The effective executive is keeping
track of your time

and seeing how much of it is actually put to productive use.

And this is kind of a twist on that instead of keeping track of your time keeping
track of how much

of what you've done is moving you measurably closer to your goal.

And this is a couple of things.

First of all it keeps you focused on doing things that move you measurably closer.

And second of all it gives you a feedback loop that you can go back to and be OK on
January 1st.

Wow I only got that one thing done.

I thought I was so busy I got felt like I got all those things done.
But in reality this was the only thing I got done that moves me measurably closer
to my goals.

Let's start filling this in here's how it works.

You've already written down your goals.

So you write down your goals here on the top and the milestones for each goal that
you're working on.

And then here every week.

Write the goals you have for the week and what I do here is I write the projects
I'm working on within

each goal.

So for a goal what I'm working on you know if it corresponds Maybe it's just the
same thing but if there

are different projects you'll write the projects here.

And then within each one you write the progress that you made that day.

And again don't write things like OK responded to these people's emails or I made
these phone calls.

What are the things again that move you measurably closer.

So fill this in every day.

And by the way here's how I personally use this that you can do as well.

Instead of two goals here I have my purpose here.

So let me put that in there.

But I have two separate projects that are moving me toward that bigger goal.

So all right.

Project 1 and project 2 and then I'll write the milestones for each one and so
forth.

And lastly what I've done is made another version of that.

So you can print out for weeks at a time before you start using this just want to
point one more thing

out and that is that this is built like a hierarchy.

You see you have your goals here and then under the goals what are the steps that
you're going to need

hit along that and then going down one step further.

What are the goals this week that are going to move you toward those milestones or
at least toward that
first milestone.

And then you put in what are those things that are going to move you toward the
week goals to move toward

the milestones that are going to move you toward the goals.

Take these three Excel sheets.

Fill in the missing pieces.

Print them out and then fill them in every day as you get things done.

Let these be your guide to being productive to investing your time and time moving
measurably closer

toward your goals.

I hope these two tools are as helpful for you as they have been for me and I hope
you get a lot out

of them.

----------------------------------------------section
3------------------------------------------------

There's a book that I really like called the slight edge by Jeff Orsen and inside
he talks about the

myth of something being life changing.

We're almost programmed to look for something that's going to be life changing we
call things life changing

looking back.

But when we really think about it most things aren't life changing and that is if
anything is at all

because real change doesn't come about overnight.

Real change comes about by adding a single drop to a bucket of water over and over
and over that when

you look back on it in a year and two years and five years and ten years the bucket
is overflowing.

This concept is had such a deep impact on my life that on January 1st I actually
wrote about it and

mostly I wrote about it as a reminder to myself for how powerful this is.

And you can read it as well if you like it Insider school dot com slash 2016 goals
but it's also the

framework that this course is based on.

It's based on the idea of setting up the infrastructure setting up the framework
for what you're going

to do to add a single drop of water so to speak to the bucket every day so that you
can look back in

a year and think wow I can't believe everything that's happened I can't believe
everything I've gotten

done versus being in the position that unfortunately a lot of people are in when
they look back and

say I can't believe that nothing's changed and I've been through that myself by the
way which is why

I was so determined to learn about time management.

So quick recap of what you need to do now first of all make sure you set up your
morning ritual really

identify what are the things that will get you feeling at your best and things that
will contribute

to you being your best self.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this but I can definitely look back on my
life and think of

times when I was the most outgoing I was I felt like most like myself I felt at my
best and I could

definitely think of times when I felt the complete opposite like I was a completely
different person

and the way that I look at my morning ritual now is identifying where are those
things that will help

me be at my best.

And those are the things that I without question want to do every single day so
please makes you set

that up because I think you'll get a lot out of it.

And then next really think about how do you want to structure your day.

And lastly identify what are the high impact activities that pay you the highest
return and make a plan

around that.

---------------------------------------------------------course
5--------------------------------------------------------------

Hi I'm leveling town and welcome to this course and goal setting as an executive
coach.

I work with executives in their teams to better understand what they are
responsible for and how to

hold each other accountable.

In short we talk about goals a lot.

The leaders I work with are super smart and have tons of experience.

They are dedicated and they are passionate.

So with that being said setting goals should come easily for them right.

Wrong For So Many of us it seems as if the week goals were discussed at school was
the week you had

the flu.

Sure I'm kidding but I think you know what I mean.

It can feel as if goals are a subject everybody knows about.

Even though no one was really taught much about it in this course we will spend
time covering the fundamentals

of goal setting and through exercises you will learn how to write goals for
yourself at work.

The information I share and the work you do will be immediately applicable and not
just at work.

You will quickly see how the work you complete will apply to life outside of work.

Let's cover a few basics about this course material and how it's organized and how
to participate.

There are six sections with short lectures and one activity in each section.

There are worksheets to download and extras on what to read.

If you want more information.

My role is to provide you with a clear concise and interesting introduction to goal
setting.

I will share my knowledge experience and just a little bit of research.

My point of view comes from years of experience working with C-level executives
startup founders and

people leading global teams.

I work with leaders all around the world and the value of goal setting transcends
and breaks down borders

literally.

It can teams want commonly shared information about what to do and how to do it.

Global teams especially desire information that connects them to their colleagues
some of whom are fast

asleep in Munich while others are in the office hard at work in San Francisco after
busting some myths

around goals.

We will cover the fundamentals on wild goals are important and while goal setting
is worth your time.

We will then jump into common goals setting strategies and then zero in on smart
goals.

You will learn how to create a smart goals template and we will finish with some
tips on communicating

your goals along the way we will have activities to make the concepts we discuss
tangible and actionable.

I've also included resources for you to take a look at on your own time as you
become more of a goal

setting wiz.

Now let's jump in and dispel some nasty rumors about goals.

It's easy to build up goals setting into something it's not.

It can seem intimidating when someone says to you what are your goals.

It can feel competitive at the same time.

I see many organizations who fail to consider how impactful goal setting can be.

Let's get going with some myth busting around goal setting.

Let's take a quick quiz.

Consider each of these statements which one is true and which one is false.

Everyone needs goals.

True in some way or form each individual requires a guidepost on what to do at

work.

You were hired to perform a role and to succeed without any goals at all.

Most people don't just figure it out goals only apply to hard skills not soft
skills like teamwork communication

or problem solving.

False you can use goal setting strategies to tackle hard skills such as programming
or speaking a foreign

language.

The same applies to what are called soft skills skills that are less tangible to
identify and not specific
to a certain career or role.

They include skills such as E Q or emotional intelligence working well under

pressure dealing with conflict

and so forth.

Your goal should be very tough for a big stretch or they aren't worth it.

False stretch goals are goals that at first seem impossible or far out of reach but
goals that are too

high.

Too tough too out of reach does motivate you.

Goals should push you not bend or break you.

You don't need to write goals down having them in your head is just fine.

False.

Get your goals on paper or on file.

Research tells us that writing them down helps keep you accountable.

And it also helps your brain see the goal as a reality.

It is best if you keep big goals secret false.

Similar to writing down goals you need to share them especially the big scary ones.

Bring someone into your confidence around those dream goals.

Setting goals hampers or stifles creativity.

If you set goals you will restrict yourself.

You won't be open to risk innovation or creativity false.

I feel setting goals gives you more crayons to color with rather than fewer.

You aren't boxing yourself in or restricting creativity with goal setting.

I see it as opening yourself up to more ideas.

You need to reach all of your goals.

False they should be obvious but I find it isn't a plain fact to many people.

There is no standard or best practice.

States you must reach all goals.

No way.

Instead keep your goals to five to seven.

Keep the number you are tackling.

Easy to manage and memorize.

Goals need metrics ways to measure progress.

True you need ways to identify success and change methods when necessary metrics
are a must have.

You need ways to capture the work you're doing.

Setting goals makes it easier for you to be successful at work.

True you will be better equipped to speak to your accomplishments and show how you
got there.

The higher you go up the ladder the less important goals become false.

Oh my goodness.

Yikes.

No way.

It doesn't matter what role you have.

You need some guidelines on what to achieve.

I spent a good deal of time helping c suite leaders define their goals as you can
see misconceptions

around goal setting surround us don't allow them to hold you back.

Just like starting a new exercise routine.

Goal setting can seem like a huge undertaking but in the end you'll be glad you did
it.

Now let's start brainstorming around your goals.

Even though we have yet to dive into details around goal setting I want you to
spend some time now identifying

at a high level what your goals are in this exercise you will identify the top
three to five goals you

currently have for your role at work you will reference the work you complete in
this exercise later

on in this course.

So please don't rush through this.

Write down all the ideas you have now.

You can organize them later.

Don't censor yourself.

Check out the document attached to this lecture and consider the following
questions.

What do you need to accomplish this year.

Start there.

Then narrow it down a bit.

What do you need to accomplish this quarter after spending time brainstorming on
these questions.

Select one of the ideas you wrote down and then think about what does success look
like.

Describe it.

Is it a number.

If so write down that number.

Or is it a feeling.

If so describe that feeling.

Your definition of success doesn't have to be perfect.

Start by thinking about what being done looks like and write down any ideas that
come to mind.

Then think about just three to five steps you need to take to move towards this
goal.

Now this exercise may be tough.

That's OK.

Don't give in.

Stick with it.

Write down what comes to mind now and you will refine this work as we go through
the lectures together.

By the way while my goal in this course is to help you have an immediate impact on
your work you can

also use the exercise to think about goals outside of work.

Yes you can think about life outside of work.

Now when you're done brainstorming we will move on to the second section and
discuss big picture ideas

on why goals are your best friend at work.

-------------------------------------------------------section
2-----------------------------------------------
Most people think that they're really good at setting goals.

They seem to assume that work experience tenure or tons of experience equal
expertise at one of the

first skills.

Anybody in the workplace should know goal setting and years of coaching I have seen
C-level leaders

with 30 years of experience leading companies valued at 50 billion dollars.

Struggle to set goals.

They focus on the number they focus on a metric they name it.

We are going to increase users by 10 percent or with this launch we will double
users in nine months

and they assume that people will know how to actually achieve it and hopefully
exceed that goal.

There is way more to goal setting than a number or hitting a specific target.

Let me give you a brief history of goal setting so you can have the right context
for how to approach

your own goals.

The Oxford English Dictionary has notations for the word goal since the 16th
century.

Sure you can say I'm a goals junkie but that is pretty cool.

Shakespeare and others use the word goal in the similar sense to the way we do
today different work

setting of course bringing us much closer to the present.

In 1935 Cecil Alec mace a British industrial psychologist and philosopher did some
of the first known

studies around goal setting.

He disputed the accepted feeling at the time that employees are primarily motivated
by money.

Today we have tons of research to support this point.

He was really ahead of his time then in the 1960s Edwin Locke published research
around the connection

between workplace performance and goal setting.

Now we are getting much closer in time and thinking to where we are today.

Locke also wrote that difficult goals not impossible are the ones that motivate
people.
In 1990 Edwin Locke and Gary Latham published a book detailing their collaborative
research.

To summarize it they shared that specific and difficult goals were the most useful
in the work environment

and they stated five principles around goal setting that we will touch on and a lot
of our work coming

up clarity challenge commitment feedback task complexity OK history lesson over in

our next lecture

I will share thoughts on what goals can do for you.

So why did I include a short history lesson in the last lecture.

I want you to have the full picture on what goals are to set a solid foundation on
why goals are your

best friend at work.

Here is a definition I want you to remember for what a goal is.

A goal is a statement that captures information about what you need to do and why
goals can be work

related which is of course the main focus in this course.

But they can also be about your home your personal life or your health.

They can be categorized as emotional spiritual or financial.

Examples of goals can range from what you will do today to that promotion you're
going to work towards

next year to the business you're going to open for yourself five years from now.

A goal can be an aim and aspiration a target objective or outcome and you can call
goals whatever you

like as long as you spend time thinking about them and moving towards them so you
can set goals for

today or this year.

Even for this decade.

But I want you to avoid looking that far into the future right now.

The most important step to take now is to dedicate time to writing down specific
statements that you

are responsible for and then checking those statements with your manager and
perhaps your peers or clients.

So how can goals be your best friend at work or goals or like a map you refer to
them to know where

to go.
They help.

Keep yourself accountable and then when shared with others goals allow those people
to hold you accountable.

Now I've met a fair number of people who strongly feel the goal setting isn't
necessary.

They argue that they don't need to spend time setting goals because they know what
to do.

They're experts.

They have years of experience and they have teams of people to execute on their
projects.

Okay I hear their point of view.

Yet when I asked some of these folks to share with me how they are evaluating
themselves and their teams

if they're managers I hear statements such as these we are making more money we are
selling more we

have more users we are using less time we need less money.

Look all that sounds great super.

But what do those things actually mean.

Who is defining what more means or what less means.

What money time users etc. Did you start with.

I feel it is crucial for every person in any workplace to understand how to

evaluate his or her work

or impact without goals or any idea what to do.

The day just goes on as it unfolds and that may be okay for a weekend or holiday
yet for work days having

a clear idea of what you need to do why you are doing it and how to evaluate your
work is crucial.

How can you contribute if you don't understand what you're doing what you are
working towards.

Are you succeeding or are you barely making the minimum effort.

So do you have answers to these questions.

If you don't feel as if you can state with confidence what you're being measured
against and why.

Keep watching and listening.

I hope you now have some thoughts to toss around in terms of how goals can impact
you.

Next let's do a quick activity to identify some good and bad practices around goal
setting and determine

which you may already be doing.

So you're starting to collect information on goal setting and you have one draft of
your goals done

at this point.

I want you to quiz yourself on the best practices for goal setting and the common
mistakes.

Before we go into our next lecture and goal setting strategies I want you to
download the worksheet

attached to this lecture and check off which goal setting best practices you are
already incorporating

and which mistakes you may be guilty of.

I'm going to clue you in on the number one best practice writing goals down when
you write down your

goals it helps to solidify them in your mind in two different ways.

First it's the obvious by writing it down you are putting the goal and the
information somewhere where

you can easily access it and see it anytime you want to no matter where you put
that paper you can look

back at it and reaffirm those goals in your mind.

But writing down your goals helps in another way too.

Not only are you giving yourself a visual reminder of your goal and your progress
you're also encoding

the information in your brain encoding is the process by which the information we
take in is analyzed

by our brains.

We make decisions about what information to keep and what information can be safely
disposed of.

So when you write something down it has a greater chance of being kept
neuropsychologist have termed

this the generation effect which says that your brain is more likely to keep data
that you have generated

yourself rather than information you've simply read somewhere else.

Curious what other best practices to keep in mind or what other bad goal setting
behaviors you should
stop.

Download the activity to find out.

This is a short exercise and will take you just five to 10 minutes.

When you come back we will dive into the common goal setting methods out there and
you will be even

better prepared to refine your goals.

So embryo or okay are what about smart b h Agee or b hag.

Sounds like alphabet soup right.

Don't worry we will decipher the acronyms I just mentioned.

Now to help you figure out how to apply the broader concepts of goal setting at
work day to day let's

cover the most common goals setting strategies you see and hear about today.

These are embryo okay R B H A G or b hag and smart.

I feel it is helpful to recognize the acronyms and understand that they share a
common goal helping

people in teams organize and communicate a common path.

I often get asked which ones the best.

The answer is It depends.

None of them is the best.

I strongly feel no method is better than any others when it comes to setting goals.

Each of these strategies has value and everyone may have different preferences for
what framework is

best to set goals for themselves.

Let's cover some of the top level details about these four goal setting strategies.

First let's discuss MBA which stands for management by objectives.

The term was coined by Peter Drucker who is considered the father of modern
management Drucker wrote

about embryos in his book The Practice of Management.

Drucker was a prolific author and many leadership coaches like myself yours truly
still refer to his

work published decades ago when working with clients and really diverse
environments embryo is a process

both manager and employee can use to evaluate the objectives of each person.
What are the manager's objectives.

What are their employees objectives.

Here are just a few thoughts about embryo.

According to Drucker's work objective should be motivating and challenging daily

feedback as part of

the process.

Managers coach and develop employees versus punish them.

Drucker set the stage for modern goal setting in his work on embryos.

His emphasis on goal setting is a collaborative process between employees and

supervisors is a theme

that was revolutionary at the time.

The next goal setting method is okay.

Ah.

Which stands for objectives and key results.

The concept of okay hours has been around since the 1970s.

Yet thanks to Google's embrace of it it feels like the best or most popular
strategy.

It's definitely been in for a while.

Andy Grove a co-founder of Intel is considered the creator of okay hours OK hours
were popularized by

John Dorr who worked with Andy Grove and subsequently became an early investor in
Google door brought

the concept to Google and boom there you go.

Some other names you are most likely familiar with linked in Air B and B and even
you to me have also

embraced the concept.

So okay our seem to be everywhere.

This is a bit about what Google says about Okay ours from their rework Web site
objectives are ambitious

and may feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Key results are measurable and should be easy to grade with a number.

Google uses a scale of zero to one point zero.

Okay ours are public so that employees in the organization can see what others are
working on.

Next there is B H A.G. or b hag which stands for big hairy audacious goal.

James Collins and Jerry porous coined the term B hag in their book Built to Last
published in 1994.

They say a true b hag is clear and compelling serves as a unifying focal point of
effort and acts as

a clear catalyst for team spirit.

It is a clear finish line.

So the organization can know when it has achieved the goal.

People like to shoot for finish lines.

Here are a few examples would be hags they sure are big Microsoft a computer on
every desk and in every

home.

Google organize the world's information.

Susan G.

Komen For The Cure.

A world without breast cancer.

Right now I want you to know about the concept of be hags and be inspired to think
bigger about your

goal setting.

Do I really expect you to take this info and run off and come back with big hairy
audacious goal that

will take you 10 years to complete.

No but it would be cool if you would be inspired to think bigger and bolder.

Finally we have smart smart is an acronym common to goal setting as well as project
management.

It is probably the method most easily recognized.

Sometimes the letters stand for a few different words.

Here's how I've seen it used most often and what I feel is the most useful
description.

S stands for specific M for measurable.

A is for action oriented maligned R is for realistic and T is for time bound while
I will spend the

rest of our work together using smart I want you after this course to pick the
methodology that works

the best for you.

Use whichever one appeals to you and allows you to write down what you were doing
and how as well as

include measurement to hold yourself accountable in the next section we'll dive
into smart in detail.

I feel it's the strategy with a tangible starting place for you and your goal
setting at work.

But before we do that let me touch on stretch goals and how they're not necessarily
the most effective

goals for success.

Before we move on I want to speak for a minute about the concept of stretch goals.

A stretch goal is a goal that initially is out of your reach.

When you begin work on the goal it is not immediately clear how you're going to get
there.

It is intentionally ambitious stretch goals should be innovative they should push

challenge and maybe

confused but not lead you to work 80 hour weeks all the time to complete them.

Personally I am not a fan of the idea which Jack Welch the former CEO of G.E.
popularized because some

companies require that every employee have a stretch goal that blanket requirement
is in my opinion

a dangerous one.

I've seen managers who are forced to whip up some crazy goals and then label them
stretch because they

are pressured to challenge employees.

In my opinion many stretch goals are ridiculously impossible and only serve to set
you up for failure.

As we dive into the smart framework you should keep in mind that the best goals are
those whose scope

you can identify from the beginning.

You can be specific of how you'll measure it and what actions you'll take to reach
it.

Most importantly it can be realistic something you can feasibly accomplish in the
time you have.

I want you to take the information in the following lectures and write solid
reasonable goals for yourself.
Detail what you are doing and how.

Based on what is realistic at the moment.

Once you've had conversations with your manager around your concrete goals you can
begin discussions

regarding appropriate and interesting stretch goals that make you feel nervous but
not fearful.

------------------------------------------------------section
3--------------------------------------------------

Take a look at these statements.

Do a better job establish stronger client relationships.

Figure out how we can save money.

Do any of these sound familiar.

Have you received similar instructions from your manager or a peer.

Are these clear statements.

Do you feel that you could go to work at them and confidently know what to do how
you re being measured

and what the end results are.

For those of you shaking your heads right now guess what.

You are part of a vast majority of people I've met.

You receive vague information on what to do at work and that makes work tough
confusing.

Let's look at the first statement again.

Do a better job.

I bet the person who wrote this for him or herself or for team member thought that
was a solid goal

to that person it probably makes sense what a better job is.

But their definition of better could be way different than mine.

This example epitomizes how confusing and vague goal setting and overall
communication in the workplace

about what to do and how to do it can be.

Most of us assume that other people are thinking the same things we are.

But I have yet to meet someone who can read minds and can telepathically convey to
me what better means.
How easily could someone like yourself accomplish these tasks and also know he or
she is on the right

path not easily.

So to save you the pain of working towards targets that are as clear as mud you
smart to help you rather

than vague indefinite statements smart requires you to be specific and detailed
about what you will

do and how you will do it to be more explicit.

Here are three concrete things that smart does.

It provides a clear focus for your work on a project or daily basis.

Having clearly established goals about what is expected of you leads to more
personal engagement and

much more success for your team and your company it helps you hold yourself
accountable for long term

progress and how your contributions add to the company's success.

It makes it far more straightforward for you and for your manager to discuss and
evaluate your performance

and to keep record of your amazing work.

All in all the smart method can make your work easier.

Using it consistently will help you gather more information about what your goals
are and help you set

them for yourself.

Now let's take a look at what smart looks like in practice.

As I mentioned earlier Smart is likely the most easily recognized goal setting
strategy.

The word appeals to people who doesn't want to be smart because it is very common
many people including

some leadership thinkers experts and coaches like myself consider it trite or
overused.

While I personally don't think we need to create a new system tool or acronym SMART
is a great way for

you to get started.

From there you can choose to use other ideas to help you fine tune your goals.

As I mentioned in a previous lecture Smart is an acronym defined a few different

ways a reminder that
this is the definition and description we will use for smart in this course.

It stands for specific the focus of a goal needs to be narrow and pertain to only
one thing.

What do you want to accomplish.

M stands for measurable.

How will you measure results.

If you cannot measure results how will you know when your goal is complete or when
to move on to the

next step.

A is for action oriented and aligned goals need to be action oriented.

Complete the project write the article finalize the work there are action verbs
that specify what you

need to do a goal also needs to be aligned with bigger aspirations your goals your
individual goals

connect to those of your manager your peers and of the whole company.

RS For realistic and relevant a goal needs to be something you feel you can get
accomplished with the

right amount of effort not very easily or accomplished instantly but certainly
possible with your skills

at the same time a realistic goal should push you just a bit.

Make you work hard and a relevant goal is one that feels relevant to you.

You can relate to it.

You can see its value or need.

T is for time bound.

A goal needs to have a clear start and finish date by when do you need it
completed.

Ideally you also know why the goal is do then.

A rough timeline can work as long as you don't use the idea of rough to me Never or
later let's go back

to the first few gold statements I shared with you in our last lecture.

Do a better job establish stronger client relationships.

Figure out how we can save money.

How smart are these statements.

Not smart at all.

Yes these are poor examples of goals.

Let's take number two and add some smart language first.

Let's make it more specific.

What does stronger mean.

I don't have the author of the statement here to supply more info so let's go with
something like this.

When you establish stronger client relationships begin by learning about the
client's needs before sharing

our product portfolio.

Now onto the M for measurable.

How do we measure this.

This isn't easy or automatic yet we can start with something like this.

The more you learn about the client in his or her situation the more likely we will
be able to build

a long term relationship one that goes beyond the initial sale.

We want to grow with the client then we come to the A for action oriented.

What actions can you take to begin take this as the first action approach.

Each new meeting with the goal of learning this list from the client.

Ask open ended questions about the current situation the ideal situation and what
they have tried in

the past.

Ok now onto the are for realistic and relevant.

Why is this necessary.

How is it relevant.

This will help us increase the length of client relationships and cut down on time
we spend with the

people who are not fits for our business.

Is this realistic.

It's just an example so I have to assume it is.

Finally we have the tee or time bound element.

This one usually feels the easiest yet it can also kind of kick you in the rear
because you may get
tired and just throw out any date.

Practice the strategy for this year and meet with the new team each quarter to
share best practices

and failures.

This is just one example and you could easily make the statement smart in a
different way.

You could be sitting there adding in smart details that are way different from
mine.

That would be ideal as you would be doing it from the context of your role team or
company.

Now let me add this critical point about smart.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

A little secret is is that it doesn't actually have to be smart.

By that I mean you can use this theory to add contexts and details your goals but
what you may write

may not have all of the five letters or characteristics.

Maybe your goal is S.A.T. or S.M. 80 it is missing technically some of the elements
of the method.

But instead it expresses information that helps you get your job done in the right
way at the right

time.

Now I want to share with you some examples of smart language so you can review your
goals and complete

an exercise similar to what I just did.

Taking something perhaps confusing and imprecise and making it smart.

In this lecture I will share examples of smart language to use as you refine your
goals.

I have tons of information to share here so be sure to download the PDA if attached
to this lecture

for more language tips.

Let's start with the essence smart or specific when you see the word s..

Remember it stands for specific.

So think of more information.

Think about how to add information for the purpose of what you are doing is clear.
You want to add details for specific refer to skills knowledge and experience.

Choose verbs that speak to specific or certain actions.

Some examples are right design research program.

Other verbs convey less physical action but are just as valuable.

These could be ones like achieve collaborate inspire to start off being more
specific with your goals

add details.

Now onto the M for measurable use language that indicates an amount a quantity a
total.

Arrange a number for example by a certain date a percentage an increase or decrease

of a percentage

a number.

A type of entity such as clients customers downloads units boxes containers

currency $ LB euro yen a

multiple double triple four times five times for example for the A.

Or action Orient in the line.

Consider these ideas.

Detail the actions you will take to move towards that goal.

For example for cooking a new meal possible actions could be reviewing the recipe
making the grocery

list.

Going shopping for groceries measuring the ingredients and so forth for the and
aligned.

Ask yourself this question.

Does this support the goals of my team or the company.

Is this aligned with what the bigger team needs to accomplish.

Now time for the R is what you are writing as a goal or what you have been handed
to as a goal realistic.

Do you have the skills resources and time to complete this goal.

This can be a tough one but if you write your name down next to a goal you know
will be a big struggle.

You you'll regret it.

Stop.

Don't go there getting wound up in a goal that is too big of a stretch can lead to
stress and failure.

What has been achieved in the past.

Use information from what you have done before to confirm that you have set a
realistic goal a goal

can be a challenge but not always a stretch.

Finally the T for time bound this one feels so easy.

Just pick a date yes time bound refers to when something will be completed but I
want you to select

a date or dates that you can meet.

Do you want to be pushed or do you want to be stressed.

Is it within 60 days by the end of the year.

You can also divide the goal into chunks to be completed during a project period.

These are not the only or best examples of smart language.

These are just ideas to get you going again.

Be sure to download the cheat sheet attached to this lecture to have all of this
information summarized

for you as you can see from this lecture.

Adding smart language isn't necessarily as easy as it looks.

It does take time but like most things it gets easier with practice.

Now let's try adding some smart language to your goals.

Let's return to the brainstorm you accomplished in the first activity of this
course.

We were going to narrow down those goals make them smart.

First take a couple of minutes to review what you wrote down.

I had asked you to brainstorm So don't criticize yourself if what you see isn't
smart.

You were just getting ideas down on paper as you go back over your thoughts
consider what you have learned

about smart.

The aim now is to add some smart details and language to your brainstorming.

I want you to begin to make those broad statements more specific.

Think about how you will measure success.

List out the actions you will take to achieve each goal and then note down how they
connect to the larger

team or company goal.

Think about how each goal is relevant to your job and consider if they are
realistic given the resources

you have.

Lastly give yourself a timeline.

How long will each goal take to complete.

This may seem like a lot of information.

It's one thing to write down something you want to accomplish but it takes a bit
more work an effort

to put in the details to be honest.

This is often where things can get frustrating or feel long and tedious.

This is where I have seen leaders with tons of experience get stuck fast.

These leaders say oh I don't need to add details I know what I'm doing and why I've
done it for years.

Then I sit down with those leaders and they struggle.

They struggle to capture how they are contributing as a result.

They really have difficulty holding themselves accountable so it's ok to feel

nervous here.

It's ok to feel stuck.

Just don't fall into the trap of avoiding this exercise because it feels long or
you're unsure of what

to write.

Don't fall into the trap of keeping it all in your head.

Remember if you write down your goals you will increase your chances of reaching
them by 50 percent.

Get those thoughts out then maybe take a breather get a cup of coffee and then come
back to your ideas

and make them smart.

Not perfect but smart.

------------------------------------------------------section
4----------------------------------------------
Quick quiz.

Why do you think goals of any kind or any methodology sometimes don't work.
Review this list of likely reasons.

What do you think the answer is number one.

Goals don't get updated number two goals are stretch goals and hence impossible to
reach number three.

Managers don't want to appear as if they're micromanaging and number four goals
don't solve problems

or tackle opportunities.

People do.

So the answer all of the above.

Let's go through these reasons one by one and you'll see what I mean first one.

Goals don't get updated you write goals you save the document you add the goals to
the online system

AND WELL YOU'RE DONE RIGHT.

WRONG goals oftentimes aren't updated with new information.

So when you return to them and review progress the information feels stale.

So much can change quickly.

Second one.

Goals are stretch goals and hence impossible to reach.

We've talked about stretch goals.

I don't want you to make my opinion that stretch goals aren't ideal your judgment
as well but when you

have goals that seem immediately too far out of reach it is easy to give up.

Then the third one.

Managers don't want to appear as if they are micromanaging.

So in this course we are focusing on goal setting from the point of view of anyone
from individuals

in a company versus managers in particular.

Yet now is a good time to see things from a manager's point of view.

Many managers are cautious about reviewing goals checking in on them holding people
accountable and

so forth because they don't want to be called the most evil despicable thing out
there a micromanager.

This fear as being seen as a manager peering over people's shoulders always
checking in on things prevents

many leaders from performing what is a key element of their role holding people
accountable and seeing

how to help them and provide direction final one.

Goals don't solve problems or tackle opportunities.

People do exactly that.

You could write the most amazing concise smart set of goals I have ever seen in my
entire life and it

could lead to absolutely nothing.

Goals don't solve the challenges at work.

People do.

The same applies to goal tracking systems fancy databases.

Don't get fooled by the temptation to track what you were doing in a program or app
versus getting it

done.

The system doesn't do the work for your goals.

These are some of the primary reasons why I see goal setting fail.

One I haven't mentioned yet is perhaps the most obvious one yet needs to be stated.

You choose not to do the work.

Goals can provide guidance for sure.

Yet you still have to do the work even if your goal is stated in smart language.

It doesn't mean you will actually achieve it.

The work is still up to you in collaboration with your manager and probably with
some peers and clients

too.

In my next lecture I will talk about what you can do to solve some of these
challenges around communication

and goal setting.

One thing smart can't do is help you decide if you have the right or best goals in
place.

This is where being open about your goals and starting a conversation.

Come into play.

I've seen executive teams fail to reach goals that were absolutely within their
reach and were adequately

set with many passion employees ready to get going because they failed to talk
about goals they failed

to spend time communicating communication breaks down and it can break down
anywhere and at any level

from executives to individual contributors.

I've seen leaders of all levels waiting for others to talk about goals to share
them tasks for feedback

to ask for help.

I want each of you to spend more time talking with each other your manager your
peers clients about

what you were doing and the goals you have for yourself.

It is essential to ask for feedback on your goals.

Otherwise you may find yourself working on a project or using a skill or tool or
method that is not

in line with what your company expects.

Feedback can come from several places and people.

Here is a list of people to share your goals with and why your manager starting
with the most obvious

choice.

I want you to take the draft of your smart goals and share it with your manager.

It is his or her role to partner with you to review the goals and ask questions and
give insight your

peers.

Don't ignore this group of people the ones you most likely spend a good deal of
your day working with.

They know your work and they know the aims of the company.

Share your goals with them your clients who benefits from the work you do for what
you create what you

write design or program whether they're internal or external.

You can and should communicate your goals with your clients.

If they are inside the company internal clients it seems much easier.

Yet even if you're delivering work to a client who's not employee of the company
you're at.

You can share with them some insight into what you're holding yourself accountable
for.

Arguably the most important part of the goal setting process is communication.

No matter how many smart goals you write for yourself it's hard to get things done
if you're not talking

to your manager peers or other stakeholders about your work and communication is
not as simple as sending

an email or posting in an online system or asking for feedback just once in the
next lecture I have

an exercise that will walk you through how and how often to talk about your goals.

This is particularly important for those of you who manage teams without direct
communication.

Ambiguity can be prevalent.

Your employees need your input on their goals even if they don't ask you for IT
managers.

You don't have to write the goals for your employees yourself but you do need to
play a part in giving

feedback to champion your people and their goals.

So this next exercise applies to you as an individual.

Writing goals as well as somebody giving feedback on the goals of others.

Now it's time for you to put in place some thinking around communication of your
goals.

Let's walk through the worksheet attach this lecture return to your revised goals
from the last section.

As you read through it again what questions pop up.

What do you need answered by yourself by others.

What do you want to ask your manager when you meet to discuss your goals.

Ideally you and your manager should discuss your goals on a regular basis.

For some individuals this is a monthly review of top level goals for others maybe
quarterly or just

twice a year.

But both of those situations assume that you and your manager are already
communicating giving each

other feedback.

Start by writing down the top three to five questions you have on your mind.

These can be questions for yourself or for others.

You will see a list of suggestions in the worksheet in case you want some ideas.

Next consider the three groups identified the groups to share your goals with your
manager your peers

and your clients.

You will see some sample questions and statements on the worksheet for these three
groups.

I want to make it easier for you to have these conversations.

You can also add your own thoughts as well as check off the questions you want to
use in each conversation.

Preparing these questions in advance will help facilitate goal conversations with
the appropriate stakeholders.

Make sure that once you open the line of communication you keep it open revisiting
and perhaps revising

your goals often to incorporate the feedback you receive.

------------------------------------------------------------section
5-----------------------------------------------
Time to make the goals you've been finessing even more tangible.

The idea is I will walk you through now.

Don't have to be the ones you implement every time you write up a goal.

We are getting into the nitty gritty so that you can learn which aspects of a
complete goals template

you want to put in place regularly.

It is similar maybe to the idea of learning how to make pizza dough from scratch.

You can definitely go and buy pizza dough already made or maybe even pick up a
freshly made pizza but

you might want to learn how to make dough from scratch at home and then decide in
the future if you

need to or want to.

The same goes for your goals.

I have a smart goals template with nine categories.

Don't worry though I will walk you through each one and then leave it up to you
decide which ones to

use regularly.

The categories of the template are goal deadlines and project period measures of
success sub goals and
steps resources and dependencies goal change scenarios.

Goal owner or owners behaviors values and competencies.

And then finally tasks.

Let's consider each of these separately.

First one goal briefly state and smart language.

Your objective.

This is what we've been working on in this course.

Number two deadlines and project period by what date or over which period will you
work on this goal.

It is ok to list several deadlines for specific steps.

Challenge yourself yet.

Aim for deadlines that are doable.

You want a little heat under your rear so to speak but not a lot.

Three measures of success.

What does success look like.

How do you know you are making progress besides meeting deadlines.

How do you recognize success for some goals and steps when you have a big goal is
helpful to narrow

down and divided into smaller pieces or sub goals.

So instead of having a behemoth of a goal in front of you breaking into smaller sub
goals then for each

some goal.

Write down the steps that are necessary for each five resources and dependencies.

What resources are necessary to reach your goal.

What do you need.

Also how will you work with the required dependencies or resources that are outside
of your direct control.

For example perhaps there is a person whose help you need.

You are dependent on that co-worker to help you.

It is helpful to note down at the people you will rely on number six goal change
scenarios.

What likely scenarios could result in the goal becoming no longer relevant and what
are your plans for
such situations.

Number seven goal owner or owners besides yourself who else is accountable for the
success of this goal.

List all the team members who play a part and by the way are they onboard.

I'm assuming you've been communicating.

Number eight behaviors values and competencies.

What behaviors are necessary to meet and exceed this goal which company values will
you emphasize.

Which competencies will you draw upon to accomplish this goal.

An example of a behavior is punctuality.

Some examples of competencies include teamwork courage ensuring accountability and

communication.

Number nine tasks.

Finally what are the day to day tasks necessary to reach this goal.

What are you going to do to get there.

You don't have to include everything you do each day such as check email return
phone calls and so forth.

Yet it will be helpful to note down your action items related to your goals.

OK I know that was a lot.

Remember you don't need to fill out this entire goals template all the time.

However if you are planning a project that involves several peers and will stretch
over a few quarters

I really want you to sit down ideally as a group and use this template.

You will hold each other accountable and as a bonus work will be easier and more
fun really.

Now I will guide you through how to apply some of these concepts to the goals
you've been refining.

It's time to go back to your goals one more time and do some final tweaking for the
goals you have been

working on throughout this course.

It's time to put them through the filter of these three categories from the goals
template I discussed

in the last lecture.

Here are the categories I want you to work on.

Number one set goals and steps.

Number two resources and dependencies.

And number three goal change scenarios.

Start with sub goals.

What are the milestones.

What are the specific steps you'll take to complete the goal.

Write down the steps.

Do not skip this step.

For example if you have a goal to learn German in order to better communicate with
peers in the Munich

office what are some steps that comprise this goal.

Take an in-person class download an app and maybe schedule a weekly Skype meeting
with peers to practice

could be three steps.

Then think about what or whom you are dependent upon.

What resources do you need.

And if the resource changes or disappears.

How is your goals and result in jeopardy.

In my foreign language example if you are not able to find somebody to practice
speaking German with

you may struggle to accomplish your goal.

Finally think about some situations that could really change things for you.

The what would happen if scenarios.

What are some of the things to plan for and perhaps plan around.

You don't need a plan for a worst case scenarios.

Just think about what you would need to do if things changed.

This is our final exercise with your goals when you are done you will be proud of
yourself from having

gone from thoughts in your head around goals to something solid and tangible.

You will be ready to go.

----------------------------------------------------------------section
6-------------------------------------------------
Congratulations on finishing this course on goal setting.

My goal was to provide you with a foundation for setting goals for yourself.

You've learned why it's important to set goals how the smart framework can help you
set specific measurable

action oriented realistic and time bound goals and how communicating about your
goals may be the number

one most important factor for your success.

We ended with a template you can use to set goals for yourself which you can use as
a resource.

Every time you start planning a new goal throughout all of activities you've
written and revised your

own work goals according the information you've learned in this course.

Now the next step is up to you.

Keep working on it.

Start and continue conversations around your goals.

And once you complete the goals you've set.

Write new ones.

Weekends or holidays can unfold as they like.

If you desire because there may not be anything pressing or urgent to do but at
work each of us is getting

paid to execute on certain tasks.

Conceptually you will continue to get paid if you execute these tasks in a certain
manner.

But if it's not clear what to do and how to do it work can get confusing for you
your peers your clients

and your manager.

I won't work for you to be different.

I want you to be able to use your expertise to contribute towards goals that help
your company succeed

and also make you shine.

I want you to be recognized as a rockstar at work and for your personal engagement
to increase as a

result.

I hope you've enjoyed my course.

I hope it has been a five star experience.

Please write and review the course and let me know what you think.

I'm looking forward to seeing you in another course as you continue moving towards
your goals.

Years ago back in the days of the Great Recession in 2009 I added I eat a smart to
create the concept

of smart goals.

Pretty smart right.

In smarty that I stands for innovative and The E stands for ethical.

At the time I was really shocked by what went on in many businesses and around the
world that created

that Great Recession.

And from there I came up with the idea of trying to incorporate honesty integrity
and change to the

idea of goal setting.

I felt as if something was missing when people were thinking about what to achieve.

I personally love the idea of smart.

So I added the I and the E to the definition to me.

I wanted people to consider doing something new different fresh and innovative.

That's the i for innovative to help you think about if your goals are innovative.

Consider these questions.

Are we doing the same things we've always done.

Do those things work.

If the answer is yes how do we know that.

What evidence do we have.

Then how are we accomplishing these items.

What behaviors are we using to get work done.

What can we do differently.

What processes need changing.

What can be original innovative new pioneering groundbreaking novel and inventive.

What do people want next then for the E and smarty.

I thought of ethical.
This is where I was just floored when the Great Recession hit.

I saw purposeful actions from leaders and companies that were unprofessional
deceitful illegal unethical

just plain wrong and in my fantasy world I thought maybe I can remind people to
bring up ethical responsibility

when thinking about goals.

How does your product service method or behavior affect others or other things to
help you think about

this.

Consider these questions are your goals ethical.

Start there and assuming the answer to that is yes.

How are they principled.

How is everyone the company the team individuals.

How are you all achieving those goals.

What methods are those methods and behaviors principled.

How are we demonstrating that we respect our clients our customers their needs and
desires and their

investments.

Finally would you buy from yourself so you could call me an idealistic person.

Yet I also live in reality.

I don't expect everything you do to be innovative and ethical.

Yet if the majority of what you are accomplishing at work is not innovative or
ethical look long and

hard in the mirror and think about where your skills can be used for a greater
good.

Make a goal to think about that.

--------------------------------------------------------------cOURSE
6---------------------------------------
So welcome to my presentation skills course.

My name's Chris Croft and I'm really delighted that you've decided to invest a
little bit of money and

time in presentations hesitations are really important quite often with job
interviews.

Nowadays you have to give a talk and presentations at things like conferences are
often career defining

moments.

There might be somebody in the audience who offers you a job at some point or you
know it might be really

important to get a big sales order or something like that so presentations of

really an important skill

and in this course I'm going to tell you everything you need to know to be able to
give great presentations.

I've structured it that we're going to look at things to prepare before we'll talk
and then how to actually

give the talk.

One of the practical things that you need to do as you go through your presentation
from how to do a

great start then keeping the main body in a logical order with an agenda and all
that sort of thing

and then how to finish finish is important.

So let's get started.

So welcome to my presentation's course and the first part of the Course is on

planning.

Planning is obviously incredibly important because if you've planned your talk well
it's bound to go

fine.

So we're going to go through all the practical things you need to plan for a
presentation and a good

thing about this is you can do it calmly either a few weeks or a few days before
the presentation it's

saussy Considered a Deskin you can do all these things.

So let's get started on planning.

So the first thing to plan with your talk is what is the one central message of
your talk.

So let's say for example are you going to do a talk about your trip to Australia.

My trip to Australia is not a central message.

Your message has got to be Australia is better than you thought.

Or Australia is not what you expect or don't go to Australia or something like that
but it has to be

a really clear message.

If it's just all about Australia that's no good.

Now sometimes you're one clear message isn't clear until you've actually planned
the talk and then when

you've planned everything you're going to say even then look at it and think well
what is this really

adding up to.

You know what I'm realizing is I plan my talk about Australia is that Australia was
really different

to what I expected and therefore that's my message that's really key to decide what
your message is

because everything's hung around that.

So you say right I'm going to talk to you about why Australia was different what
you expected and the

first thing that was different is so absolutely vital.

What is your one central message.

And that's a non-trivial question.

So what I do when I'm planning a talk is I draw out a mind map and I actually love
mine maps on an eye

patch because you can just use your fingers and move things around and insert
subcategories but mine

that on a piece of paper is also great.

And if you don't like my maps by the way if you don't know what they are just
Google and they're obvious

really they've got their they got the subject in the middle and the lines come out
and then they divide.

So you can have subsections if you don't like my match you could just have a list.

But I would really urge you to consider my own maps because you can have
subbranches.

What you sometimes find is that you have say three or four branches and in one of
the branches goes

into more and more detail and you think actually that really my talk and I'm not
going to bother with

the other little branches.

But if you got three or four branches they're all roughly the same size you can
then decide what order

you want to have them in.

So a mind that is a great way to think about the structure of your talk.

So once you've got the main body of your talk ideally three or four sections but it
can be just two

sections.

But quite often you can have three or four.

I wouldn't have 10 sections in a talk I would try to divide them down into three
and then have subsections

within the three because our brains start to run out of road when we get to more
than about four or

five sections.

So once you got the main body structured you can then think about what the
introduction is going to

be and what the summing up is at the end.

So some people when they're planning the structure of their presentation they make
the mistake of writing

the introduction first.

But you must do the main body first and then decide what the is going to be and
what the sum is going

to be.

And then the final thing to think about is your timing how long is your talk going
to take.

And this is really the most difficult thing about giving a presentation is to keep
it to the right length.

If you've got to give a 25 minute talk how on earth are you going to do that now.

What way to do it if you're using PowerPoint.

For example is to just think about minutes per slide.

Most people plan on about two minutes per slide so a 25 minute talk you're probably
going to lose say

five minutes on the introduction and the summing up so it's a 20 minute talk two
minutes per slide so

that 10 slides are actually fine that I go slower than most people I take about
five minutes per slide

rather than two.

And that's because I quite like to improvise tell some stories.

And also I like to chat to the audience a little bit and I'm going to come back to
that later.

That's a very important point.

Interacting with the audience.

So I find that on a typical slide I've probably got five bullet points and I like
to explain each of

the five bullet points and ask people a question have they had this problem what do
they think.

So it takes about a minute per bullet.

So for me it's five minutes per slide and that means a 20 minute talk is only for
slides which is not

many at all.

I find with most people they have far too many slides in their in their
presentation.

I was with a customer recently and they have a little PowerPoint slide show on.

Welcome to our company and it shows potential customers all about the history of
their company and it's

got 40 slides.

So even if you could just do one slide a minute it's to take you 40 minutes.

It had loads of boring pictures of you know that this is the company in nineteen
hundred and this was

the extension we built in 1960 and you just lose the will to live.

So really 10 slides maximum and probably less than that.

So two to five minutes per slide and a final thought about this is you can you can
either plan top down

or bottom up so you can either say it's a 20 minute talk.

So if I'm averaging at say three minutes per slide that seven slides and then you
could think what am

I going to put on my seven slides.

The other way to do it is think What do I want my slides to be then.

How many have I got and therefore how long is my talk.

And then when you discover the talks too long you might to cut a slide or two.

So my map do the main body in.

Ideally about three sections then put the introduction in the summary on the
beginning and end and then
think about your timing.

Two to five minutes per slide.

So probably the most important part of your presentation is the start.

The first 30 seconds she need to prepare this really carefully.

It's in these first 30 seconds that the audience decide.

Do we want to listen to this person.

But it's also in these 30 seconds that you in your mind decide is this talk going
to be good or not.

So if he gets off to a bad start then you're really going to be struggling.

So you absolutely must get off to a good start so prepare it really carefully.

And I would say there are three things you can have in your star you must have one
of these three.

You can have two of them or even all of them.

So the three things that you need to think about one of them is start with a
question.

So if I was good to my talk about Australia I could say how many of you have been
to Australia.

Now why is that a brilliant thing to do.

Well it gets the audience involved from the start and even the people who don't
physically answer in

their mind they're thinking well I haven't been but I'd like to go.

Or yeah I've been.

So it gets everybody involved.

If you ask a question but also you need to know whether most of the audience have
been or most of them

haven't.

So asking them a question how many people know about the changes to the tax system.

You know whatever you talks about it's a really good start is a question.

The second way that you could start some sort of mysterious start to you could say
I'm going to talk

to you about the biggest country in the world or the country that's got the most
poisonous snakes of

any country in the world or you could even put a picture up and say does anybody
know where this is.
You can put up let's say some jungle people would think Australia was going to be
sort of red sand and

and desert.

So some sort of mysterious start so you could say I'm going to tell you three
things you don't know

about the new tax changes or I'm going to tell you why the new tax changes are
going to change everything.

They're going to have a huge effect on your business something like that something
where they think

you need to know that.

I quite like the idea of three things or I'm going to tell you 10 things that you
didn't know about

presentation skills.

It's kind of mysterious and you're thinking I need to know those 10.

The final thing you could have in the start is the what's in it for me factor.

And again you could say I'm going to show you 10 things that you need to know about
the tax system.

There needs to be something where they say I need to know this.

You need to say I'm going to talk to you about what's happening with the with the
tax system and if

you don't know about these things it could be really expensive.

It could lead to all sorts of problems or if you do know that these you'll be able
to make a lot more

profit.

So going back to my Australia example what's in it for you.

Why should you care about my trip to Australia.

And the answer is I must say to you I'm going to tell you about Australia
particularly I'm going to

tell you about three things that you must do when you go the best three things I
discovered when I was

there and also I'm going to tell you about two things to avoid.

Two things that are definitely not good to do.

If you ever go to Australia.

So now I've got you because you're interested you can see what's in it for you.

So those are the three things to think about in your start.

Could you start with a question.

Could it be a little bit mysterious and could it cover the what's in it for me
factor.

I think you can see.

You can do all three of those.

Ideally and then run through your start just physically actually stand there and
present it ideally

to a person.

But if not perhaps to a dog or a cat or to an empty room but actually go through
and say the words so

you can just check that it feels okay and you don't stumble over anything you don't
have to run through

your whole talk.

But this is starting 30 seconds you absolutely should run through it.

Make sure you've nailed it and then you'll feel much better before you start your
talk.

So we've talked about your initial impact statement if you like starting with a
question or something

mysterious.

So now we get on to the main introduction of your talk.

What are the things that should be in your introduction.

Well firstly you have to say who you are.

And I think the main thing with this is to give yourself credibility but also be
modest this quite difficult

trick.

Do you what to say I am an expert.

I know everything because then they're just going to think well we don't like him
or her and they're

going to start to look for any faults they can find in your talk so you don't want
that you want to

just quietly shall be doing this for years.

I've made every mistake you can make so I'm going to help you to avoid those same
mistakes.

Something like that.

And something I do is I don't always start with who I am.

I usually start with a bit about the talk and what's in it for them.

And then I say by the way I'm am.

Chris I've been doing this for a while because I don't think that I'm the most
important thing.

So I don't want to start with that.

The audience are the most important thing the message and the talk is the most
important thing.

So I start with that and then mention who you are with some sort of subtly modest
credibility statement.

So who are you are your credibility.

We do need to cover the what's in it for them.

Question which I've already talked about a bit but there needs to be I think
repeated something about.

You really need to know about this.

It's going to help you it's going to allow you to make more money it's going to
avoid accidents at work

whatever it is.

Why should they listen to this talk.

And you absolutely must prepare that and have a good answer for that.

And then the next thing is to mention something about the length of the talk.

People are obsessed by how long will this talk last and they're obsessed by you not
taking longer.

So if it's a 25 minute talk you absolutely mustn't take 30 minutes.

Now if it's a 30 minute talk it's absolutely fine to take 30.

But bizarrely if you tell him it's a 20 minute talk and you take twenty five that's
really bad.

So say to them it's a 20 minute talk and it really will take 20 minutes.

We're going to come back to that later because when we're halfway we're going to
reassure them.

By the way we're halfway through the talk now.

People really worry a lot about you going overtime.

I don't know why.

It's just one of those things.

Okay so we've had who you are some credibility perhaps covered later on in the
intro.

We've had the WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME.

We've had the length of the talk.

The next thing is to put up some sort of an agenda absolutely vital to have an
agenda and it needs to

be visual.

So if you just say I'm going to cover five things de de de de de then they're going
to think all those

five again.

So you need to have some visual agenda that they can see.

It could be a PowerPoint slide.

It could be on a piece of flip chart.

What I quite often do is if I'm doing a PowerPoint jog I have an agenda written on
a on a flip chart

page off to the side because I like to see that as well it means I know where I am
in the torkham what's

coming up.

But also they can see the agenda as I go through my PowerPoint slides.

But you can also have it down the side of your PowerPoint like a sort of menu on a
website or even going

across the top or the bottom so you grey out each bit of the agenda as you go.

But I have some sort of an agenda that they can see all the way through is great.

There's one other way to do the agenda.

You could have it ends up at the start and say this is what I'm going to talk about
these five areas

and then after the first part you could say right so we finish the first part to
the second.

Put the agenda up again and then after the second part.

He has the agenda.

And if you've got quite a lot of sections you might not put your agenda every time
you might get a couple

of sections go by and say By the way we're now on part 7 and put the agenda up
again.
So they always can see where they are in the tunnel.

Something else that needs to be in your introduction is is it okay to ask questions

as we go along.

You've probably heard people doing presentations and they say please could you keep
your questions to

the end.

Now I personally don't like that because people are bottling up a question they're
worrying about whether

they're going to ask the question at the end because they're a bit nervous about
asking it in front

of the audience.

And also they may be completely stuck because you may have used some abbreviation
or some technical

term and they don't know what it means.

And that could ruin the whole rest of the talk.

So I don't think you should say keep your questions to the end.

I think you should say feel free to ask questions during.

I like it.

If you're not sure about anything please just ask it any time.

Sometimes if you think I'm talking a load of rubbish as well.

Feel free to ask me a question or to tell me that you don't agree because I want my
talk to be interactive

and I'm confident enough I can answer the questions is going to be fine and I'll
come back to this in

detail later on you know what happens if you are asked a question you can't answer
so you must say to

them in the intro feel free to ask questions as we go along.

And finally finish your introduction with a question.

So when you finished your whole introduction you then say right so we're ready to
talk about my.

My visit to Australia.

How many of you have been to Sydney and that signifies that the first section is
going to be that Sydney

in fact you could say the first section is going to be about Sydney.

How many of you have been there so finish the question.

And that kind of tells them the intro is over and we're now ready to go into
section one of the talk.

So we talked about preparing the start and that's really really important.

I think the second most important part of your talk is the finish.

That's what they're left with after they leave the room so the finish has to be
good.

So what should be in the ideal finish well.

First of all I don't think you should finish with just so any questions.

You know he shouldn't just sort of fizzle out.

And some people they talk to sort of fizzle out.

No well so that's it really and I hope it wasn't too boring.

And so by the way never apologize never apologize at the start of your talk.

Never apologize at the end of the talk.

Never say I hope it wasn't too boring because people think actually yes it was a
bit boring wasn't it

so.

No.

And so just to let it sort of fizzle out say so there we are that's I think that's
it really.

Any questions.

That's obviously no good.

There has to be a.

So there you have it factor I think of it as.

So there you have it.

So for example one of the best talks I've seen on one of my training courses they
can do a talk on anything

they like for 10 minutes.

Right.

And one guy did a talk on how to iron a shirt.

And yet she brought in an ironing board and a shirt.

I think it would have been good to have you taken off his shirt and done it.

But he did.
He brought another shirt and he showed us how to iron a shirt and he was telling us
all about you have

to do the collar and then you do this bit and then you go back.

And he was asking is why do you think you do it in this order.

He was a brilliant talk but the best bit was the end because when he finished doing
all the shirt he

felt the shirt up and he said so there you have it the perfect shirt.

And we all had to go.

You had to stand up and clap it was so good.

So your tour needs to have a.

So there you have it factor at the end of.

I was talking to you about my trip to Australia.

I would probably just say.

So they have it.

How to have the best possible holiday in Australia.

And you really should go or something like that.

Just some sort of you know nice little at the finish.

And then you can say by the way are there any questions.

But the any questions can't be your finish.

Now a couple of ways to have a good finish.

You could have a summary a recap so you could say so there we have it.

That's my talk on Australia.

My top three things were you must cuddle a cool while in Brisbane.

You know you must see the fruit bats of Belling and Ireland and.

And you must see you know the the dolphin in tin can Bay or the turtles earth or
wherever.

So you just go back through your top points so that's a good way to finish.

Another way to finish is a call to action.

So you could say so all I want to do after this talk is to go back get the Internet
on and book a trip

to Australia has a history serious.

But you could say so you know.

Do bear in mind Australia as a possible holiday destination.

And certainly if you're talking about sales you should say next time you need this
service or this component

please do consider us.

Because as I've showed you we have got four features that nobody else has got.

And by saying next time you need it please do consider us.

You're putting that thought in their mind and they'll think yeah yeah I will.

And then when that next comes up they'll think I was supposed to phone that guy.

So a call to action just leaves a little subliminal thing a little trigger in their
mind zieger visual

summary or you could finish with a call to action or even both.

As a final way you could finish which is to have a quiz and you might think a quiz
is a bit patronising

and a bit weird but actually people love quizzes.

So you could say right to to finish just for 30 seconds.

I just want to find out how much you can remember from my talk.

I just did.

So what was the name of this or you know how many of these were there and you see
and just get people

to shout out the answers.

And certainly if you really want to remember several things if you have a quiz it
gives you one more

chance to tell them your message.

So consider finishing with a quiz.

Okay so that's that's finishing my main points were.

It's good to have.

So they have it factor.

It's good to say any questions but that doesn't count as a finish.

You could have some sort of summary or recap you could have a call to action and
you could have a quiz.

So the final thing is prepare is the audience what type of audience are they what
type of people what
level of knowledge are they gonna have.

They're probably get to be a mixture.

So that's a problem.

But it's worth just thinking you know they all get to be qualified doctors.

They're going to be scientists who know a lot about your talk already or are they
just going to be the

public sort type of audience.

And then what size of audience.

Now the size of audience in some ways doesn't matter because you're still going to
do the same talk

and I tried to talk to huge audiences as if they're my friends and I'm just
chatting to a small number.

So in a way it doesn't matter.

But I think the one thing that does matter what size of audience is what sort of
visual aid are you

going to have.

So with a small group I like Flipkart Personally I like her is right on the flip
chart and go along

and I can involve them I can ask them for suggestions and I can write them up and
so that's what I would

naturally choose.

But when PowerPoint was first invented That's how old I am.

I remember thinking PowerPoint fantastic and I made all these slides but I just I
found that it wasn't

as good going through PowerPoint as something about a flip chart wages chat and you
write things.

So for an audience of up to probably 30 people I would go flip chart because 30 is

only a six by five

block of chairs and they can all see the flip chart.

Bigger than that.

You have to go PowerPoint.

And of course if you're going to show photographs and things you have to have
PowerPoint anyway so you

need to think about visual aid.

I'm going to come back to this later later but PowerPoint is is definite going to
be the option if it's

a bigger audience.

You could use just a handout so you could give out just a page of notes.

And what I do when I got a really big audience is I put a page on each of their
chairs with the notes

on it so that when they come in they got that.

And then when they go they take it away with them so they can write things on it
during the talk or

whatever and they take it away.

And of course it's got my phone number on my website on it so.

So that's a nice thing to take away and hopefully remember me and and maybe hire me
later if that's

the objective of the talk.

So you could just have a hand out and if you're really pushed you can have a hand
out and no other visual

aid you can just give them that you can just talk them through what's on the piece
of paper.

But generally it's much better if you can have a screen.

Now something I learned from the great Brian Tracy who's totally got.

I mean if you haven't heard of Brian Tracy you must check him out.

I went to see him do a talk.

And he it was about leadership in the morning it was about selling in the afternoon
and he gave out

a little A4 booklet and it had lots of gaps.

So it just said and the salesman's biggest fear is and I'm you know when you're a
leader there are three

things you must remember which are.

And then it was just a gap.

So when I was listening to his talk I was thinking What's the biggest fear going to
be.

What is it what is it.

And then when he said the biggest fear was rejection I think I was quickly writing
it down.

So so I learnt from him and I've copied it and it works really well that you can
give out a hand out
with gaps in and the audience can fill in the gaps as they go along.

So it prevents the reading ahead and seeing in advance what you're going to say.

But it keeps them occupied and when they finished they got this thing all filled in
that's theirs.

That has some value to them which they're then going to keep forever.

And of course it's got your phone number and website on the bottom so you could use
just a hand out

and have gaps in it or you could use Powerpoint Plus a handout and audience size is
going to affect

your choice of that.

But the main thing is never have nothing never have no visual aid at all.

It's very difficult for audiences to cope when you're just talking at them now.

I'm just talking at you now.

And it's not ideal but each of these videos is only about four or five minutes
long.

Plus we're putting bullet points up next to me because you have to at the very
least have bullet points

coming up.

So that's what you need to think about when you're planning your audience.

Okay so that was Section 1 on what to prepare before you do your presentation.

So you might want to take a break now and go away and actually do that preparing.

And then I will see you for part two what to do when you actually present your
presentation.

------------------------------------------------------------SECTION
2--------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to Section 2 on overcoming nerves.

This is a really important part of the talk as I mentioned earlier on.

Most people are nervous about giving presentations.

They needn't be but they are.

But luckily I've got some great ideas practical things you can do to reduce your
nerves and to build

up your confidence.

So let's have a look at those now.

So I've got seven tips for you on how to overcome nerves.

And the first one is self talk.

What you say to yourself in your head.

Most people as soon as they're told they got to give a talk in a month's time they
think who is going

to be awful I hate giving talks.

If you say I hate giving talks then you will hate it.

And the more you tell yourself the hate it the more you hate it.

And if you say it's going to be awful it will be awful.

And if you keep thinking it's going to be awful imagining it being awful that will
happen.

I had somebody on a course once and she said to me however much I prepare when I
actually stand up to

give my talk I can feel all my preparation floating out of my head and off up into
the sky and it's

gone.

And I remember thinking all of that such bad self talk who's If you can imagine it
floating away than

it probably will if I probably put that thought into your mind now.

So you must tell yourself it's going to be GREAT say the talk will be great.

I love giving talks.

It's going to be fine.

I'm the expert.

I know all about this subject it's going to be fine.

Now you're probably thinking well but it isn't going to be great.

That's just not true.

Answer is.

I know it's not true.

I want you to lie to yourself.

I want you to say to yourself it's going to be great.

Even though it's not now you mustn't say it's going to be great because then your
subconscious doesn't

believe you.
You got to say it is going to be great you got to say to us if you believe it.

And what will happen is that slowly that will become true.

It doesn't take long you probably got to say it 20 times.

Spread it over a few days just every now and then see it yourself.

I'm really looking forward to my talk it's going to be great.

And after a while your subconscious gets bored with resisting that message it goes
year yet.

Going to be great.

And that's when you know you've won.

So keep saying it to that becomes true.

And of course it's going to be great you are the expert.

So that's my first of my seven tips self talk.

The second of my seven confidence tips is to have backup plans for everything.

Then you know you're bombproof.

So bring spare connecting leads that don't cost very much.

Just have to leave for everything because leads are often the problem when you find
your projector is

making everything look pink coloured or yellow coloured.

It'll be the lead.

One of the pins in the lead has got worn out so it's often the leads.

But also if you can bring a spare laptop and certainly when I go and do a
presentation and they say

everything is provided I bring my own laptop because I quite often find they've
uploaded my presentation

onto their laptop and the fonts are different or it's a different version of
PowerPoint or whatever

and I just bring out my laptop and everything's fine.

Similarly I have a spare projector in the boot of my car now that perhaps is a bit
obsessive I do training

courses all the time so it's easy for me.

But if you're going to go and do a talk somewhere it's really important and they
say they've got a projector.

Why not borrow the one from the office or whatever and just chuck it in the back of
your car because.
Sometimes there'll be a problem with the projector at the far end.

I can think of two or three times over 10 years where I've turned up and have gone
oh my god Chris it's

awful.

The is not working and I've said No problem I got mine.

And sometimes their projector isn't broken it's just crap it's just all fuzzy and
it's a really old

one that's been in the hotel for years and you just think.

So you bring out your own and it's all sharp and bright so bring your own laptop
bring your own projector

and bring all the wires as well.

Also bring in extension need because quite often you know that you can't reach to
the plug and it's

just a small thing but why not have an extension lead in your car and then the
final two things bring

spare notes.

So I bring handouts for the talk.

I'm eager to do and then if there is a total failure of visual aids then I can
still just give them

the notes and we can use those as a visual aid and I can talk it through the piece
of paper that they're

each holding cybering notes.

The other thing I always bring spare Mark depends because if you're going to write
on flip charts or

a whiteboard the wyvill Pens are always dried up and quite often the flip charges
has a sort of yellow

one or something.

So bring loads of pens as well just in case.

So then you arrive with all this kit of stuff and then you know the or absolutely
bomb proof.

My third tip to overcome nerves and be more confident is to chat to the audience as
they arrive.

This is a really good tip.

I don't know where I got it from I think I've just discovered it but get there
really early.
Get all your gear set up so you don't have to be faffing with that while people are
arriving and then

you can just hang around at the front and chat to people.

Now why would you do that and you might say well you know I'm going to be
intimidated.

They're all doctors or something like that you might be thinking all these people
are so scared.

But what happens is that you discover that they're just normal people and you just
say welcome to the

talk have you come far or whatever or what why did you decide to come to this talk.

And you can you can find out that firstly they're normal people.

Secondly you can just talk subtly to what they want because you'll know what kind
of people they are.

You'll be on their wavelength as you do that.

So it helps you to tell that you'll talk and make sure it's spot on.

And thirdly it means you've got some friendly faces in the audience already.

If you talk to three of them then you'll see them smiling as you as you're doing
your talk and you'll

feel good about it.

So hang around and chat to people as they arrive.

That's a really important tip.

It does mean you need to get there early then get everything else done before
anybody comes.

But I would recommend that anyway.

The last thing you want is to be panicking trying to get your gear working
correctly as the audience

are already arriving.

So that is Tip number three.

Tip number four for getting rid of nerves is to get there really early.

Now I refer to this a little bit in the previous video.

But get there really really early.

The last thing you want is to be stuck in traffic having stress or whatever.

And quite often when you get to the run you find that it's not what you expected.

The chairs are all the wrong places.

There isn't a flip chart or whatever.

The screen isn't quite straight and it takes a bit of fiddling to get the screen
the way you want it.

So get there really early and check the room and the equipment.

If I'm doing a talk I quite often got the night before and staler hotel and I like
to go and look at

the room.

The evening before.

Because then I sort of feel subconsciously that it's my territory and then when I
go back there in the

morning I already know what I'm expecting and it feels kind of easy and natural
It's my room then.

So you get there really early check all the equipment well in advance.

If they preloaded your PowerPoint presentation then have a look at it before

anybody gets there because

you're busy you can't have slides coming up when the audience are already there.

So go through them and I would go through every single slide just quickly because
sometimes you find

that you know the fonts have got corrupted or they've got different fonts or that
the person who's organizing

it has very helpfully fiddled with your presentation which is really one of my pet
hates.

I've done it the way I want it now.

I just thought I'd improve it for you Chris.

So get there really early make sure everything's the way it should be.

You might wonder why someone would change my presentation but sometimes they change
it to their corporate

colours or their corporate font.

So it all has to be you know pink and yellow.

What has to be an airy or some sort of horrible font like.

So you get there and a go.

So they didn't mind I've made it into our corporate cultures and I kind of have to
live with that.

But at least I can go back through and just make sure that everything fits on that
at least is easy
enough to see.

But it is a real pet hate of mine that changed my presentation.

And then you've got time to just relax and have a chat to people as they arrive.

So that's tip for get there really early.

Tip number five out of seven for increasing your confidence is to stand up.

Now you probably don't want to stand up a lot people worry about standing up but it
is definitely better

a bit like swimming in cold water.

It's great.

Once you're in and it is better once you're up.

So I would absolutely say stand up if you're using PowerPoint you can operate it
from sitting down but

don't.

The reason why you should stand up.

There's a number of reasons actually but partly that you're easily visible from the
audience they can

see you.

Second your brain works better when you're standing up.

I think when you're standing up your heart has to work harder to pump all the blood
around and therefore

it pumps around quicker and so more oxygen gets to your brain or something.

But I bet you know that's right though because when you're on the phone if you're
doing a difficult

phone call that you find is better if you do it while you while you're pacing
around.

So brain works better brain works better people can see you.

It gives you more authority if you're standing up.

Your voice carries better as well.

But also it shows respect to the audience.

If you stand up for them if you just sort of lounging in a chair chatting and these
it's almost like

you don't really care about the audience.

So for these reasons you absolutely must stand up.

And I quite liked to use visual aids as an excuse.

So if it's a just a small group of say three people I'm going to present to it
might feel a bit weird

to stand up and I say well let me show you this.

And I then point to something on the screen.

So then then I've got an excuse to stand up to point to it and then I just stayed
standing up as I do

my tool.

So stand up you will actually feel more in control and more confident.

Suggestion Number Six to improve your confidence and overcome nerves is I think
probably my favourite

one which is to ask the audience questions during your talk.

Now this takes a little bit of practice but believe me it's brilliant.

Once you get used to it ask them questions during your tool.

If you just do a talk and they're all just sitting there silently It's horrible.

You know are they listening are they bored.

Did they agree with it.

Do they understand it.

I don't know.

So I like to ask questions.

Never been to Australia.

What did you think you know.

Has anybody stroked a koala.

What you think a koala feels like you think is soft or not because by the way
they're not that soft

They're like a bit of an old carpet.

You could ask them what do you think softer a koala or a kangaroo is actually
kangaroos a much softer.

Who'd have thought so.

Any questions you like.

Now I just make up questions as I go along like I just did then.

But you might want to prepare your questions initially but if this is a new game
for you.

So for each PowerPoint slide and you're probably going to have between five and 10
prepare at least

one question for the audience and they can be quite generic Like has anybody else
had this or can anybody

give me an example or or even what do you think.

My next point is going to be you know is anybody got any other suggestions.

Those type of questions really important to ask questions during.

And it feels great because when you get answers coming back you know that the
audience with you and

they're on your side.

Now the worst cases you ask your question and you get nothing.

And I'm going to come back to that later because I'm going to talk about what to do
with difficult audiences.

But you know just to jump forward slightly to that you could pick a person and say
Louise what do you

think you in the end there.

Have you ever had this so you could actually pick on people or you could just say
Hands up everybody

who's had this cause even if they're very shy and very introvert.

Because to put their hand up so have the if you like giving presentations you know
you could you could

get to or how many of you were given a presentation in the last month just see how
many people put their

hand up.

So asking questions during is absolutely key.

It will make you feel much more relaxed and it'll make the talk feel much more
interactive with the

audience so they will enjoy it more and they will understand your key message much
more clearly if they've

been involved in the talk rather than just sitting there and having it thrown at
you.

So that's number six.

Ask questions during.

And finally my seventh suggestion for improving your confidence and overcoming
nerves is to have a run
through to check the timing especially the first minute of your talk.

You absolutely must run through that.

You could run through the whole talk just to check the timings okay.

I've be doing this so long now I know.

I take about five minutes per slide and I know that if I'm going faster or slower I
can correct as I

go along.

But you might want to just check that your 25 minute talk isn't going to turn out
to be an hour or three

minutes.

So have a run through and then you know that it's all fine.

Now as you do the run through you might feel a bit nervous and and you may feel
it's increasing your

nerves but if you've had a run through you'll feel much more confident when you
actually get there to

do the talk.

I wouldn't do loads of run through though it starts to get a bit stale then I think
I would do to run

through at the most.

That's my seventh tip for improving your confidence.

Have a run through especially of the first minute of your talk.

So those were my seven tips for improving your confidence and overcoming nerves.

And I really hope those have helped.

Even if you just do some of them even if you just get there early.

Chat to the audience as they arrive and then ask them questions during the talk
that will make a big

difference.

But also having spare everything so that you know your bombproof anyway whichever
one of those tips

you choose and I hope you do all seven that should make you feel much more
confident about your talk.

------------------------------------------------------SECTION
3----------------------------------------------------------
Okay so we've looked at what to prepare and how to overcome nerves.
Now again to get to Section 3 which is what to do as you deliver your presentation.

So you've thought about yourself and your appearance.

The next thing to think about is the room lay out.

Where are you going to stand and what should the audience lay out look like.

So there are probably are four main audience lay out.

You can get my favourite four groups up to about 20 years you shape of tables.

I like a U shape because they can look at each other a little bit as well as just
me.

And also I can walk down into the middle of the you if I want to give out notes
halfway through or whatever.

And it also gives me a certain amount of control over them if I walk around.

Because if you've got a big long table a boardroom table the people at the far end
can sort of chat

and whisper and it's hard to keep control of them if you've got more than about 10
people round the

table.

But a U shape of tables you've got control over all of them.

So that's my preferred audience lay out.

But I also like what they call cafe style and this is a collection of tables maybe
five tables but it

could be up to you know 20 I suppose is usually about five tables and then you have
people sitting around

the tables.

Now you don't have them sitting all the way round the table.

Some of them would have their back to you so you probably have about four or five
people sitting round

the far side of each table.

And that's great for group work.

They can working groups and then you can come back to the presentation.

Any problem with cafe style is that often it ends up being quite wide as a table
there a table there

and a table there.

So I don't really know where to face so I have to sort of walk around quite a lot
and if I've only got
one screen the people at the far end struggled to see the screen.

But sometimes you have several screens of course and then cathay is great.

So you shape your Katha.

Sometimes you get cast from style which is just rows of chairs.

And that can be just a block of seats or it could actually be a kind of an

auditorium sort of glass

room maybe even banked.

I don't like class room so much because it's hard to be interactive with people
with bigger audiences.

It has to be class but a smaller audience.

I wouldn't want clash and style really.

But sometimes it's like that and you could still be interactive and you can chat to
people particularly

the people on the front row you can chat to them.

By the way if you're putting out chairs I easily put out slightly fewer chairs so
that they have to

fill up right to the front and then as more people arrive I pull out a few more
chairs as if to say

I've got so many people have arrived to my talk.

More people than I was expecting because if you've got loads of chairs and you end
up with a few empty

ones the empty ones will be at the front and it sort of looks bad as if you know
you haven't sold all

the tickets type of feeling.

So that's a little tip.

Put some chairs away.

Bring them back out again.

You can just have a U shape of chairs.

I prefer tables because I think people feel a bit vulnerable if they don't have a
table.

And also if they're going to write notes things but you can just have a U shape of
a table of chairs

that's the other option.

Just thinking a bit more about room layout.

Sometimes you have a problem with a very wide room or a long room and both of those
are a problem.

Really you want kind of square shaped just the room was really long you going to
have people way at

the back who perhaps can't hear you can't see the screen and you may lose control
of them.

They might start chatting amongst themselves and things and if you are very wide
room as I mentioned

earlier with the cafe style then it could be a problem because they can't all see
the screen or the

flick chart.

So if you can have a fairly square room that's better but sometimes it's
unavoidable.

And then there's the question of where are you going to stand because obviously you
don't want to block

the screen and you don't block the screen for anyone.

So ideally my audience are where you are and that's the screen.

Then I would be off to the side looking at the screen like that so I would be sort
of diagonally.

So I can see them and the screen.

So that's ideally how I would be.

So you need to think about where are you going to stand.

Maybe you have to move some tables out the way in a sort of thing and just a final
thought is Don't

block the door either.

So quite often I arrived to do a training day and there's a big long table and
there's a door at one

end and I've got the choice of which end of the table should I put it.

And I always put the flip chart at the end away from the door so that people come
in the door and then

there's the table there's me behind the table because then they don't feel trapped.

I don't whether to feel that if they had to nip out the loo or whatever they have
to get past me and

my flip chart it feels like I've captured them.

And also you don't have interruptions if someone does have to get the loot they
need to you know just
go out the back.

So ideally you wouldn't be by the door or blocking the door.

So there are some thoughts about audience later.

So now we come to the agenda and the idea of signposting and this is really really
crucial actually.

I mentioned already that you would have an agenda.

You must have an agenda and it must be visual.

So verbal agendas no good people can't remember the agenda.

You got to actually show it to them and you got to bring it up again after each
section of your talk.

But the key thing I want to say is signposted.

So you say to them right.

That was section one.

We talked about that.

Now we're going to section two and you have the agenda up while you say that sir
every time you finish

the section you put the agenda back up and you say sir there we are.

We've now finished Section 2.

We got two more sections to do.

And I liken this to being on a train and going past the stations.

So you've got your journey and you know we've now gone through a housing stroke.

Next it's Woking and then so you know where you're heading and you know that London
is is nearly there.

So really important to signpost and in fact it's almost like going into a tunnel
really a presentation

is like you go to this tunnel and you don't know how long you're going to be in the
tunnel.

And the person doing the presentation has promised it's going to be 20 minutes but
is it.

But isn't it great if they say you've now passed this milestone you've now passed
this milestone because

then you know that you're on schedule.

So how long will I be in the tunnel.

Four is what the audience are desperate to know.

And they're really worried they're going to be in the tunnel longer than promised.

So have an agenda signposted as you go along.

And just a final thought signpost that the ending is coming as well.

So if you're talking about say seven things on the agenda when you've done five you
can say I've only

got two more now.

And then we finished.

And then you get to the seventh one you say.

Now my final point.

I mean a talk about this and then we finished.

So they're not going to be suddenly taken by surprise.

It's a bit like Bob Dylan does a harmonica solo before the final verse.

So you always know when you get to the.

Some would say badly played harmonica solo that you know that you've only got one
verse to go and then

you can either feel happy that Bob has nearly finished or sad but Bob has nearly
finished.

So if you say one more section then we finished.

Everybody knows.

And then when you finally say so that's it that's the end of my talk.

Just to sum up.

I've covered three things.

It's not a sudden dropping off a cliff because I've seen presentations where the
person is talking and

talking in this and they go and that's the end.

You think what I didn't know the end was coming.

So signpost the end is coming with two sections to go and one section to go.

So this next section is about body language.

Some people are obsessed with this some presentations trainers.

They say that you mustn't say arm or her and you must put your hands in your
pockets and you must talk

out.
Presentation Corso went on ages ago.

The lady was saying you should have a power stance you should be sort of like this
when you do your

talk.

So if somebody tried to push you over they wouldn't be able to push you over.

She's like that.

I'm thinking really because I just think you should be yourself really should be
relaxed and should

be yourself.

But I've already mentioned you absolutely should stand up and obviously you don't
want to be doing anything

too weird with your hands.

I think it is all right possibly to have one hand in your pocket while you're
talking.

I think you know be quite relaxed to be sort of talking like that perhaps.

I think both hands in your pockets would be dodgy.

A district a too much.

But just to however you would normally do it.

So but definitely stand up and I've already mentioned you can use a visual aid as
an excuse you can

say I'm just going to point to this and you can stand up.

But I think your stance should be fairly natural.

I think you should walk around a little bit don't pace up and down endlessly.

But but I think you absolutely should walk around a little bit.

Talk to table over there talk to the table over there if you've got several tables
cafe style.

Try to be a little bit Smiley.

Now you may not want to smile because you may be really terrified of doing your
talk but if you can

have the occasional amusing thing if you can smile a little bit that would be good.

One more thing about body language is equal.

Eye contact for every body.

Now wish you had a big audience.

You can't do it.

But you should spread your eye contact out so talk a little bit the people over
there and then talk

to them and talk to the back a little bit and just go for the corners really
because if you just latch

on to one person and always talk to then it's a little bit weird and creepy for
them and it's horrible

for everybody else.

Is there a girl she's mean without me.

Do you care about me.

So if you can keep moving your eye contact around then everybody will feel that
they're included but

not under pressure.

So those are the main things I think stand up and stand reasonably confident.

By the way I wouldn't hide behind a podium and you may think you need a podium for
your notes but what

I'm going to deal with that later on because you don't need notes I will come to
that later.

So don't stand behind a podium.

If there is a podium come out from round and either lean on the podium or stand
next to it and talk

to the audience they'll much prefer that.

So standing up standing confidently smiling and equal eye contact for everyone.

The next thing to think about when you're doing your talk is how are you going to
be interactive with

the audience.

I mentioned this in the section on confidence because it's so important if if you

can be having a bit

of a laugh with the audience and asking them things and they're telling you the
examples they've had

it feels almost more like a conversation than a presentation.

And I think that's what great talks are like.

And when I talk at conferences usually there's you know six or 10 speakers during
the day and I'm the

only one who asks the audience what they think and has a bit of a banter going with
the audience a bit

of chat and people always love that.

So this is something you can easily do that will make you better than the other
speakers.

So so first of all prepare it think what questions am I going to ask your audience.

And you need to allow time for that.

A lot of time goes by when you when you're asking them for examples so it may
double the time that you

need them therefore you've only got half the material that you think and that is a
bit scary.

And sometimes I look and I think oh my God I've only got three PowerPoint slides
for 20 minutes.

This is really.

But of course it's going to be fine because I'm going to ask them for examples.

Now I'm going to come back to timing later because what you can do is have a few
extra things in which

you can miss out if you need to.

So then you don't feel too worried.

And if the audience just don't answer anything you're still okay because you got
your extra stuff.

But I'll come back to that later in a more scientific way.

But certainly you need to allow time if you're going to be interactive with the
audience.

I already mentioned the benefits before but just to summarize them again.

You know the audience with you know they're on your side they know that they're you
know that they're

understanding your message if you're getting answers back from them.

But also you can correct.

You can go faster or slower you can go into more detail or you can simplify things
if the audience is

struggling to answer your questions but also it gives you time to think because
when you ask them a

question and they're answering although you do have to listen to their answer gives
you a little bit

of time just to catch up in your mind and to reload and to think you know how's the
talk going.
Have I covered everything just gives you time to think.

Another benefit when you ask the audience a question is they have to answer it in
their head.

Even if they don't say anything they have to answer it.

So when you say who's been to Australia they're all answering that even though they
may not say it out

loud.

Now if the audience are not very chatty it's quite a formal occasion.

You could just ask them a yes or no question.

Ideally you'd ask for people you'd ask me to give you examples so.

So as you were doing a talk on negotiating you might say who's done a negotiation
recently but you could

just say who likes negotiating.

Put your hand up or whatever.

But I like to usually ask them for an example or ask them what the answer is.

What do you think you should do if somebody else refuses to negotiate.

So here are some examples of the types of questions that you could ask somebody
while you were giving

a talk.

You could say who thinks that they're too much of a perfectionist am.

And if they don't reply you get them to put their hand up.

Hands up who thinks they're too much of a perfectionist.

By the way another thing you can do is you can get them into pairs.

So you say okay I just want you to talk for a couple of minutes to the person next
to you about your

biggest time management problem or your worst habit or what your boss is like.

Talk to your next door neighbour about your boss.

And then you can have a rest for a couple of minutes while there's loads of hubbub.

Everybody talks slightly awkward You got to get control again but that'll be fine.

So after a couple of issues you say okay everybody right let's see what you've got.

So hands up who had a bad boss and give me some examples of things that bad bosses
do.
And what you'll find is that because they've been talking to each other in pairs
that's loosened them

up and they've now got a message that they are proud of and they would like to give
to the group.

So they're much more likely to be forthcoming if they'd just been talking in pairs.

So questions you could have a who's had a bad boss in the past.

What sort of things do bad bosses do.

What kind of things can go wrong during a talk.

That's a great question to ask.

What can a person do to make it through some.

Do you Jamaican yourselves feel more confident you can ask that question.

And if it's a small audience and you're using a flip chart you can just write the
things up.

So what can someone do to make themselves feel more confident.

Anybody And you can just write the ideas and people love seeing their idea written
up on the flip chart.

So that's a good way you can harvest in the ideas if you're using PowerPoint.

You can't really do that but what you can do is you can ask them for ideas and then
you can put your

list up and you say yeah well done you got that when you got that one.

That's an extra one that nobody got.

So you can do it like that.

So there are just loads of questions you can ask and you can say.

What would be the answer to someone asking you to split the difference in a
negotiation and you see

what they say or you could put up a photo and you could say how many safety hazards
Can you see in this

photo.

And people can shout out you know the ladder looks wobbly the bloke standing on a
roller skate or whatever.

So spotting the problems in a photo is a great place to be interactive with the

audience and then you

can follow that with saying what's the biggest cause of accidents in factories.

Do you think.
So.

Plan your questions be interactive.

It's probably the most important thing to doing a great talk.

So this next section is on how to remember your talk.

Wouldn't it be great to do a talk without any notes.

And you can I'm going to show you how so in increasing order of goodness really
starting with the worst

one.

Never read from a script.

It's just horrible reading out a talk from a script.

It means there's no eye contact with the audience.

It's just going to sound stilted and it's awful.

So never write a script out and read it.

I mean Harvey nails it's a whole load of work.

Tough to write the script out as well.

So that's the good news is you don't have to write a great big script and similarly
never learn a script

off by heart.

I mean I suppose that's slightly better than reading it out but learning it off my
heart is a huge job

to have to do.

And what happens if your mind goes blank at the beginning of your talk or halfway
through it you're

really stuffed.

And if you've got the script you'll be rummaging for where you are always you know
where was your place

in the script.

So never read from a script never learn a script off by heart just don't do scripts
so that's good news.

So on to things that I like.

I think an A for page of notes is good.

You know imagine if you had just a piece of paper and on here I've got about 10
things written in capitals.
I could just hold that and do my talk.

And how would you feel if you were the audience.

And I was just every now and then thinking well the next thing I want to tell you
about is this dad

did it.

And then the next thing I'll tell you about is this.

Would you be thinking he's cheating he's got notes.

I think you would.

I think you'd be fine with it.

In fact you probably would be pleased that I had done a bit of preparation.

So I think an A for page is absolutely fine.

And of course what you can do if you leave your a four page on the table then every
now and then when

you have a quick look at it they're probably not even going to notice that you're
looking at it.

So if I'm writing on a flip chart I quite often put the a four page on the floor
next to the Flip chair

or on a chair just behind the Flitch.

So I can see it but the audience can't tell that I'm looking at it.

A four is good.

I don't like it little cards of notes you the classic wedding speech where they
have cards in their

hand.

I just think cards are a bit.

Now their big wedding speech.

And they have problems as well because they're small the writing has to be small
which is hard to see.

And then you have to keep turning them over and of course the audience can see
them.

I always want to shout out I can see your cards because just because they're small
enough to be in your

hand you can still see them.

But the main problem I find with cards is that you don't know what's coming next.

So when you flip over the car you think oh yes I was going to wear that next.
Whereas if you've got your a four page you can see what's coming next so there's
more of a flow.

And you can lead into it you can see now go to my next section which is X. So I
just think cards they

don't flow.

There's a risk you're going to drop them and get them in the wrong order.

They're just I wouldn't have cards.

Personally I don't recommend them.

So a full page of notes you could put them on the table or behind the flip chart.

Another little trick if you're using a flip chart is that you can write in pencil
just very lightly

on the flip chart and the audience won't be able to see the pencil but you can.

So you then write in your big marker pen on the flip chart but you got the pencil
telling you what to

put.

So that's a clever thing you can do.

But I think the best way of all is probably just to be cued by your visual aid and
if you're using PowerPoint.

This is what you have to do cued by your visual aid.

So the visuals that come up on PowerPoint should tell you what to do.

Any way if you've just got bullets coming up that should be enough to remind you
what to say.

Now when you do your run through if you find that you can't remember a key number a
date or a population

or something that or a price then put that on the slide.

And if there are three points you want to make about one of the bullets and you
can't remember what

the three are then put those three points as sort of sub bullets underneath that
bullet point.

So when you finally get to complicated you can't remember it.

That's a sign you just need to put a little bit more on your visual aid.

But the visual aid should just be bullets you definitely don't want to have
paragraphs of text that

you're reading out because the audience is thinking well I could read that.
Why is he reading it to me.

So no paragraphs of text just bullets.

I read somewhere that you should never have more than seven bullets on.

On one PowerPoint slide and I think that's a good rule actually.

Ideally fewer than that four five is probably the ideal number.

But as I mentioned you can have a few sub bullets.

There a particular point you want to remember but if you find you've got seven
bullets and within each

of them there's four subs or this then clearly you need to have seven slides.

And each of those is going to have four bullets on it so you just gotta divide it
down.

But then you got to start thinking how long is my talk to be.

So you have to keep an eye on that.

So to sum this up then never write a script never have to read it out never learn
from.

Learn the script off by heart never have scripts have.

And I don't think cards are very good either have a four notes on the table or on
the floor pencil on

his flip chart or be cued by your visual aid.

In this next section I want to talk to you about my sleeps.

Is it a bit of a weird idea but the idea is that people have don't actually fall
asleep but it had these

little things called microsleep where they just daydream and their mind goes off
for a while.

You can have good or bad microsleep the good ones aware your audience of thinking
about your message

they're thinking yes I suppose I do have microsleep.

She's right.

And then the bad ones are where they're thinking he's taking a while.

You know I wonder I wonder how long it is till lunch do what I'm going to have for
lunch or they're

thinking ah that shirt of his is rather nice I wonder where he bought that.

It's been ages since I treated myself to new sushi.

And they're off in some goodley you know daydream that's got nothing to do with
your tool.

Now people will have microsleep there's nothing you can do about it.

And apparently for the first five minutes people can manage to concentrate but
after that microsleep

get more and more prevalent.

And by the time you've been talking for half an hour they're away with the fairies
about 50 percent

of the time.

So how do you handle the fact that people are having microscopes and the first
thing is to say everything

important twice because if you said a second time the chances are they won't be
asleep both times and

they'll get your message so find a way to say things twice.

One way to say it in and in the introduction and then in the main body and then
when you sum up so at

least when you sum up they're going to hear it a second time but quite often you
can manage to give

an example so you you say for example when you go to Australia you must have a look
at the koala bears

in Brisbane.

I know they're not bears by the way they just quoll as.

And then you say in here's a picture of one of the koalas in Brisbane and then you
say so that was my

first point.

Obviously you got to see the others in Brisbane so find an excuse to really hammer
that point in because

they will be micro sleeping.

And then the other way you can do it is to have visual arts because while I'm
showing you a picture

of a koala even if your mind is always thinking about lunch your eyes are still
open hopefully.

So you're still seeing the koala and you're still thinking as a are there.

So if you could have visuals as well as the talk then you can overcome the tendency
to have microsleep

sleeps.

And then do the summing up of course.

So the summing up is not just so they can hear it twice but it gives them a chance
to get back on the

train.

So imagine you know we're going through these stations but imagine you every now
and then people fall

off the train.

If you stop and say Okay.

So that was number eight microsleep.

Now I'm going to go on to point number nine.

They can.

They think oh.

Oh okay.

And then they get back onto your TL.

So some up every now and then so they can get back on the train.

So that is microscopes.

Now what if you were doing had a longer talk talk that's longer than let's say 15
minutes.

It's a good idea to put an activity or two in.

And certainly if you're doing a talk for several hours you've got to have
activities in that talk.

And I've got six ideas for activities that you could put into a talk.

My first one is discussion in pairs.

I mentioned this before you just say to the audience talk to your next door
neighbour about you know

what the strategy is for your company or what you think of your boss or how much
did they know about

the data protection legislation or whatever it is and just get to chat in pairs.

And this loosens them up and it makes it much easier then to get them to to talk to
everybody later

on.

So that's the first thing.

Talking in pairs.

The second one is to get the shout things out and write them on the flip chart.
And as I mentioned earlier if they're talking in pairs they're much more likely to
engage with this

second idea.

So you get to shout out ideas and you write them up.

So you'd say things like what do you think the main things are that you would want
to do if you were

on holiday in Australia.

And they go koala's and you can write that one up and you know surfing or something
like that.

You write about them.

So that's a really good way to involve the audience and you're getting them to do
some of the work.

It gives you a bit of time to think and you get a nice big list generated by them.

And remember if they generated it must be true.

If you say it it may not be true but if they generate it it must be.

And anything they don't come up with you can add you could say there's a couple of
other things I would

do when I was there.

I would really recommend you know seeing the turtles or whatever it is and you can
add those on.

My third of my six ideas is a post wall.

So you just give out post it notes to the audience and you say particularly if it's
something that they

may not want to admit.

So suppose you were collecting ideas for how the managers in the company could be
better managers and

people might not want to admit they said things you just say right off the post
it's any ideas of how

the managers could be better and people write things like you know thanking us more
or involving a certain

decisions and things like that and they can all write their posts and then they
just stick all the post

it's on the wall so you don't know who's written what.

But it's also good because you can then sort them into categories as well so you
can actually organise
the information and get some conclusions you could see that 20 people here all said
that they didn't

think they were thanked enough and only two people said that they thought the pay
wasn't enough I mean

it will be really interesting.

So post it wall is a really good idea to go to pad out your talk a bit by making it
more interactive.

The fourth idea is to get them to presents something so you could have either into
groups and say like

you for I want you to come up with ways you think that the company could improve
its sales and you for

I want you to look at customer care and you for I want you to give a little talk in
a minute just a

five minute talk on new product ideas or whatever it is and just give them stuff to
do.

So they then need 20 minutes to prepare it and then each person's talks going to be
five minutes and

there's four of those.

That's another 20 so 40 minutes is going to be used for this.

But we're not just padding.

This is going to actually be a lot better than you just droning through all the
answers because they

get really involved.

They feel that they've had a chance to have a say.

And they'll probably come up with stuff that you wouldn't have thought of as well.

So getting them to do little mini presentations can work really well.

And if it's a group of four if a couple of them are really nervous about presenting
it's fine because

you only want one of the four perhaps two of them to do the presentation just a
five minute presentation

using a sheet of flip chart paper as a visual aid.

That's what I would you I'd give them each a piece of flip chart paper and a couple
of pens different

colours and say write some things on there and present it back to the group in 20
minutes time.

So that was the fourth one the fifth of my of my six ideas.

And can you see heim's signposting So you know where you are in a little tunnel.

My fifth idea is to have a work day example.

So this is where you give them a question to work out and then you show them the
example up on the screen.

So something like finance would be classic for this you know you could say Have a
look at these three

companies and work out which ones got the best profit margin or whatever.

And then you could show them the example and you write it up so they get a chance
to have a go and then

you show them the right example the right answer.

And then my final example the sixth one is to have a quiz.

And I mentioned earlier people love quizzes.

They get really competitive about it.

And I usually just do a shout out the answer type quiz.

So I just have PowerPoint slides with questions on the question the answer the
question the answer.

And I have the words appearing as they do it.

So I ask the question.

They all shout out the answers and then I click and it comes up.

By the way have a clicker.

You got to have a clicker.

So the things just come up because then you can walk around the room and you can
just click up the next

line on your PowerPoint.

So that's the quiz you can give it out in writing and get them to either on their
own or in groups work

out what the answers are.

And then you can ask each question and get the groups to shout out the answers to
you.

And that's another way you can do it.

So working in pairs shouting out ideas for the flip chart the post it wall getting
them to present giving

them a worked example which you show than the answer and then a quiz.

Those are all ideas for making your talk an interactive.

If it's a bit of a longer talk.

In this section I just want to make three points about the general style of your
presentation.

And the first of my three points is to use examples to make abstract ideas come to
life so if you've

got an abstract idea like an ad no.

When you're negotiating your opening offer should be reasonably extreme.

That's too abstract.

But if you say suppose there's a house for two hundred thousand.

Don't offer them one hundred ninety five.

Offer them one hundred thirty because that's going to really shock them.

And then they're going to come down 10 grand straight away.

That's much better isn't it.

Have that actual example it's much more powerful than just saying extreme opening
offer or or if you're

saying something like you know when you calculate net profit and gross profit you
know the difference

is that with net profit you take you don't include fixed costs or whatever it is
that's really confusing.

So what you should do is to show them a real example and say look here's a company
here.

The fixed costs.

Here are the variable costs and therefore you can see that the net profit that's
the gross profit and

actually show them a real example.

So always use examples to make abstract ideas come to life.

That's the first thing I wanted to say about general style.

And you can either have an example and then the principal that comes from that or
you can start with

the principle and you can say and here's an example of it you can do it either way.

And the second of my three points is that general style is humour should you have
jokes or humour in

your presentation.

And I think you've got to have some humour and I've joked around a little bit in
this talk already.

But humour is difficult because.

It's very easy to upset people with jokes.

There's always going to be somebody who who doesn't find a story amusing.

So for example I sometimes talk about when I'm talking about project management I
talk about estimating

and I talk about how long will it take for me to drive home.

And we talk about the average and then I say what's the quickest I could do if I'm
absolutely charging

down the country lanes with Badgers bouncing off my bonnet.

How quickly could I get home.

And I think that's kind of amusing.

But of course there is a risk there's going to be somebody who loves badgers and is
really upset by

the idea of me running over badgers which of course I don't do and I don't want to
do I love badgers

I think because I say badgers bouncing off my bonnet.

I can sort of get away with it but I think you are be really careful about humour
as is always going

to be somebody who doesn't like a joke.

And I definitely wouldn't put in a pre prepared joke you know.

Yes.

Now that reminds me of of a little story about three people who went into the park.

I mean it's just going to be awful it's going to fall flat it's going to be
terrible.

So never have a pre prepared joke.

But if you can get humour from any way during your talk you should absolutely take
it.

You know if somebody comes up with a funny answer.

I was doing a project management course the other day.

And when we're doing the Ganesha.

We had the first one has the hours how many hours each person spending.

And the second one we put the the pounds the spend.
But what I do to make it interactive I have the I named the first one hours and I
said it's the first

one's called Hours.

What's the second sheet going to be called.

And somebody said there's an error in what you say.

It was just hilarious and obviously she hadn't really been concentrating it been a
long day to be fair

to her.

So we all had a bit of a laugh and I said no no we've got ours.

And the other one is going to be pounds.

And sometimes funny things happen and you can all have a laugh and that's great.

And if somebody else makes a joke I mean that's.

That's brilliant.

You know.

So humor's fine but don't pre prepare humour because it's going to fall flat.

And then the third thing which I've illustrated in this she is do have a few
stories tell a story give

a real example of something actually happened.

People love examples and I'm going to be telling quite a few more stories later on.

GQ when we get to what could go wrong in a talk.

You know I have a few stories of terrible things that have happened to me while I
be doing talks and

you just know that they're going to be good aren't they.

So if you could put a couple of real life examples real stories then that's great.

I've got a little game I play by the way where some of us when I tell a story
afterwards I say by the

way do you think that story's true or do you think I made it up again.

Oh.

And you know half of them go I think you made it up and half of them say it's true.

No no no it is true.

And I think that's quite a good way to make them see that the story really is true.

Why would I make it.

I'm not clever enough to invent stories.

They are all true.

But that's a fun way to really accentuate the fact the stories are true.

So summing up general style then use examples or even a story to make abstract
ideas come to life.

Be careful of humour.

Have a little bit thinner but be careful about pre preparing humour and include a
couple of stories

if you can give stories really make your talk come to life.

Now we need to look at the dreaded PowerPoint.

People talk about death by PowerPoint.

And some people have tried other things like prezzie.

I don't know if you've seen prezzie which is pretty funky I like prezzie but really
it's PowerPoint

is the only game in town and it's not going to go away any time soon.

I don't think even if you like using prezzie quite often when you turn up to do a
talk at a conference

PowerPoint is what they are using.

So how do we make PowerPoint good.

Well I've got 12 tips for PowerPoint.

I'm going to zoom through them pretty quickly.

Tip number one is if it's on someone else's laptop check it just don't trust
anybody else.

If they say no no I've prepared it's all going to be fine.

Check every single slide.

Make sure the colours are okay the fonts are okay make sure they haven't changed.

Always check it out.

So that's the first tip.

Second tip is spellcheck.

Why would you not run the spell check.

Some people don't know there's a spell check for PowerPoint they think it's only in
word but absolutely

run the spell check.

There's no excuse for typos on your PowerPoint slides and as well as the
spellcheck.

I would get somebody fussy like me to have a look at your PowerPoint slides just to
check you haven't

put anything stupid.

Maybe maybe there's a typo that isn't going to be detected by the spell chequer.

So you really want to make sure everything's right.

Number three not too much on each slide I mentioned earlier on.

7 is usually said to be the maximum for the number of bullet points and each bullet
points should be

short.

You don't want to have a big long line probably more than no more than about four
words for each bullet

point.

Shorten it and shorten it.

I found is one of the main things that I do when I'm teaching presentation skills.

When somebody puts up their PowerPoint presentation the first thing we do is hack
it down to shorten

the lines.

Get rid of half of those bullet points.

So number 4 is not too many slides.

If you're going to take five minutes per slide it's a 20 minute talk.

Only for slides and if you're two minutes per slide 20 minutes at 10 it's such a
common fault that people

have too many slides.

And then of course the presentation overruns and the audience are unhappy or you
have to rush horrendously

fast to the last few slides so don't have too many slides.

Next is the look of your slides.

I would recommend just black or white or maybe dark blue on white.

Don't have pink on green or yellow one green or something like that.

And I also would not recommend white on black because when you printed out you're
going to have to use
a huge amount of ink and it's going to be really hard to read.

So.

So just make sure you got the right colours on the upwards right.

Point Number 6 is have a clicker have one of those little buttons so you can just
go through your sliding.

You can even have it in your pocket.

That's pretty cool and you can just click through or just you know you dont have to
keep going over

to the computer and pressing the button.

Although if you are using somebody else's computer and you don't have a clicker a
little tip I'd recommend

is you can use the space bar because if you're trying to use the forward and
backward arrows and there's

a risk you press the wrong arrows you press end it jumps to the end and that's
really horrible.

So use the space bar to move on but better have a clicker and if you are going to
buy a clicker spend

a little bit more and have one that has double or triple a batteries.

You don't want to have one that has those little round silver hearing aid batteries
because they run

out quite quickly and they're expensive and the last thing you want is a clicker
that runs out half

halfway through your talk so go for one that has double AA batteries or triple AA
batteries.

Point number 7.

Build the slides.

Don't have your PowerPoint pages just coming up completely full but make each word
come in and don't

have them zooming in with sound effect.

Were you know you just wanna build the slides and have the have the words just
coming up.

Just appearing I used the one called appear so do that.

But I would say it built the sides.

Most of the time.

But every now and then if you've only got say three you might want to just buy all
three on there and
talk about them specially the bullet points and not that revealing.

It's okay to have all three on the slide on the screen at once.

Because if you always build the slides it starts to feel a bit laboured a bit
tedious for the audience.

So built the most of the time but every now and then just bung them all up.

So that's easy if you don't know how to build sides and get someone to show you.

Number eight of my PowerPoint tips is put a full stop after the final line.

This is a little thing I've invented but I think it's pretty cool.

So if you've got your slides being built and the lines are coming up you don't know
if there's one more

line that's going to appear.

It's really horrible if you say my final point and there isn't another one and it
just goes to the next

slide.

But it's also horrible if you say away are I finished and you go to the next slide
and one more line

comes up.

So the way to know that it's the final line is to put a full stop just after the
final bullet line because

then you know it's the final one.

Point Number nine of my PowerPoint tips is photos.

Get those photos included and your whole thing comes to life.

You got a picture any fact I've seen people do PowerPoint talks where there were no
bullets.

Only pictures and they just talk around each picture.

That's pretty cool as well.

But make sure you got pictures not distracting ones and you know.

But make sure you got some pictures in your book otherwise it's horribly dry.

Point Number 10 of my 12.

So only three left is diagrams.

Diagrams are great as well.

Much better than a list if you can make it into a diagram.

So I saw a guy do a talk about diving about scuba diving and what he did he she
didn't have PowerPoint

he was just drawing.

He drew a little stick man with a head and a body.

And then he said the first bit of apparatus is the air canisters and he drew these
two cylinders and

then he said There's your Maskin you drew the mask and then as the person he does.

And he explained each bit of equipment and he was drawing it on and it was so much
better than just

having a list.

So.

So if you can have some sort of a diagram and it's much better than a list so every
now and then if

you've got too many lists just think to yourself how can I make that list into a
diagram.

Idea number 11 out of 12 is one that I mentioned earlier which is to use the space
bar if you're using

somebody else's laptop I think that is a good tip it probably deserves to be on the
list in its own

right.

Finding Number 12 really clever little tip that most people don't know is that you
can jump to any page

within your presentation by just pulling in the number.

So if you want to go to page 11 just type in 11 enter and it will it will go

straight to that page.

So if you do actually accidentally press end instead of using the space bar and you
want to go back

to wherever you worse vous you on page 7 you could just press seven enter and power
point when it's

in presenta mode.

It will take you back to page 7 and that's great when your answering questions as
if somebody says you

know at the end they say can you explain that thing again you can just go three
enter and your back

there.

So if you print out all the pages and have them on the table.
If anybody wants to go back to a particular page you can see the number and you
could just put the number

Precentor and you're there.

So that's my final PowerPoint tip.

So there we are 12 tips to improve your use of PowerPoint.

So what could possibly go wrong in your talk.

Well what I want to say first off is you will be fine.

There are so many things that can go wrong.

But actually most of them most of them you'll look back and laugh later.

I've had some horrendous things happen to me.

And I'm going to go through those with you in a moment and you'll see is the most
horrendous list.

But here I still am.

I survived.

I'm fine.

I can look back and laugh.

So they're fine.

So I'm going to talk to you about some other funny things.

And then in the video after I'll talk about some of the more common problems that
happen and what can

you do about those.

So first of all let's have a look at some of the funny things that have happened to
me.

First of all I've had a nosebleed during a talk whose blood coming out my nose and
I tried you know

sniffing and he just wouldn't stop and it was all running down.

And in the end we had to stop the talk and it had me lying on the floor and they
were all pushing tissues

up my nose and.

But after about five minutes it stopped and then I carried on with the talk and it
was fine.

But that was that was pretty bad.

I mean I can look back and laugh now and I'm sure they'll remember that talk is the
one where the guy
had the nosebleed.

It was in Guernsey and I had gone across on the aeroplane.

I think the pressure must have made me have that.

But you know it's fine.

The next one is I've been sick.

I've actually thrown up during a tour and I did actually have time to run out of
the room.

And obviously something I'd eaten at lunch time disagreed with me or something and
I said OK I'll be

back in a minute sorry everyone.

And I just had time to run half way down the corridor.

I didn't even get as far as the toilets.

And I came back in and I realized I had I went to the loo and clean myself up and I
came back and I

realized that it was all sort of water down the front of my tie.

I think where I had sort of tried to wipe off bits of stick.

And it was a talk to a load of doctors as well and they were all looking again you
okay.

And I was probably a bit of a sort of greenish white colour.

Okay Christmas Day game five and I actually had to run out a second time and be
sick again and we ended

up calling that took off again again so you know I'm fine I'm here I'm still alive.

So you know why not the next one is that somebody fainted and somebody just
collapsed off their chair

onto the ground.

That was a bit of fun.

And it turned out actually he'd been drinking a lot the night before and had
alcohol poisoning.

So that was a bit off putting.

I've had people run out of talks in tears because I'd mentioned something you know
badgers or whatever

it is and they've been really upset I know they've burst into tears and run out of
the room.

Have also had somebody had a hearing dog which was just the cutest ever dog which
lay on the ground.

An I've done a few I've done a few training sessions where people have had dogs and
they are quite quite

distracting.

I also did one where somebody had a signing person with them next.

And so her and because somebody in the audience was deaf and they had someone doing
sign language next

to me.

So while I'm talking next thing somebody going like this the whole time and I was
putting extra words

in like tapeworm and things you know just to see what the sign was.

So that did put me off a bit but it was fine and you know it worked.

I did a talk at a pig farm and the whole the whole room where we were was infested
with flies and they

sprayed poison so most of the flies were dying and they were just falling down and
sort of buzzing while

they lay on their backs.

And that was really horrible.

In fact when I got back to my car after the talk and it was full of flies I left my
sunroof open and

for some reason all the flies had gone into my car and I only witnessed it and how
they didn't come

out so I thought I'll just drive and hopefully they'll gradually.

I drove all the way from East Anglia to Manchester with my windows open and the
final fly went out of

a window just as I arrived in Manchester.

Horrible.

Three more things have happened.

I lost my voice completely one time and that was bad.

I did the talk.

I brought a microphone and I was going to talk very quietly into the microphone.

But in the end I just whispered the talk and it was actually worked really well
because everybody really

had to lean in and concentrate.

So losing my voice was okay.

That wasn't a problem.

I could have used the microphone.

There was a rather horrible one where somebody was working on the roofs.

Scaffolding was being put up and a guy actually fell past the window and hit the
ground and an ambulance

came and he was taken away and things and and you know we just carried on with the
training session.

But that was pretty awful.

And the final one I got to tell because it's so funny.

My trousers disintegrated.

I was doing a project management course for Harrow Council and suit trousers are
pretty thin anyway

and I think they were really worn and I must have probably just gone past the
corner of the flip chart

or something and I must've just scuffed my trousers and anyway it was right which I
could hear all this

sort of tittering and I said to them you know are you okay there's no question
Misha.

Chris it's your trousers.

And I reached down I felt it and oh my god that whole flap had just sort of come
down.

And when I was wearing pants wasn't into the world.

So I just did the rest of the morning facing towards the audience and at lunchtime
time I went to Marks

spencer's and bought small trousers.

But actually I do have a spare pair of trousers the back of my car now just in
case.

But the point is all those things happened to me and I'm fine I'm still here.

I live to tell the tale I can laugh about them now.

It doesn't matter.

So those were some of the crazy things that have happened to me and here I am I'm
still fine.

But you're unlikely to get any of those.

I hope so for your sake.

But what are the problems that you're likely to get.

And what can you do about those.

Let's have a look at them now.

I think the commonest ones are probably

people who chat people who are.

People in pairs who just sort of mutter and whisper.

And this can be a good thing because it can be that they're saying oh my God he's
right I need to do

that.

Well they might be saying what did he say.

Again I just missed that.

So it could be that they're interested in you talk but it could be that they you
know they're just distracted

or you know something they've suddenly thought of something to do with work and we
want to tell the

other person.

And I personally think that to start with you should ignore them just let them do
it.

But then you could sort of look at them catch their eye.

You could end if that doesn't work you could say okay that you want to ask
something.

I was remember at school when I was talking about They'd go.

Kroft is there something you'd like to share with the class and I began.

No sir.

But but so you could say it is a question we want to ask you okay there.

Because they might just want to ask something but if they carry on doing egusi Look
I do need you to

concentrate it.

You know.

Do you mind.

And I think you know you can really step it up and say look if you're going to talk
you want to go outside

and have your conversation then come back in because you've got the power you're
running that day.

So I think people who chat are a common problem but easily handled.

Another common problem is people who ask tricky questions either questions that you
don't know the answer

to or questions that I just just deliberately malicious really just deliberately

impossible.

Well I think with these with difficult questions it's fine to say I don't know the
answer you got me

there.

You know I don't know the answer to that.

I could find out let you know later if you like or you can say to the audience
that's a good question.

Anybody know the answer to that one.

And somebody probably will but nobody does you can say well I don't answer either.

And I think it's fine.

And if you were asked a really horrible question by somebody in the audience the
audience will be on

your side.

They'll all be saying oh how glad I am.

You know that's a really stupid question on often.

Glad I don't have to answer that question.

So I think it's absolutely fine you just say that's a good question actually and
I'm afraid I don't

know the art haven't got the answer with me for that one but I can find out and let
you know.

Another common problem in the audience is people falling asleep.

Well I hate to admit this but I probably about one talk in five that I do.

Somebody falls asleep.

But I sort of think if you've got an audience of 50 people and 49 of them are
riveted you're doing fine

it's not you.

And I think some people just have you know a baby that keeps them awake or they
just you know are insomniacs

and this is called sleep apnea.

There's a thing which you know some people just can't stay awake.

So don't take it personally if somebody is falling asleep and it could be that

they're just a boring

ignorant person who's not interested in your talk and is turned up by mistake or
something.

But if everybody else is interested it means you're doing fine.

So don't worry about the person is falling asleep.

I have tried going silent and seeing if they suddenly wake up or even pointing at
them and everybody

else is all laughing at the hump pointing at the person.

But generally I think it's better just to ignore the person who's falling asleep.

People who come in later are annoying.

And I used to say something to them I used to say well we're we were all here on
time or something like

that.

But somebody was late and I gave her a hard time and it turned out that her turenne
had been in some

sort of horrible accident and I felt really bad about it.

So what I've learned now is not to have a go at people who come in late.

They probably got a good reason.

They may just be disorganized and rude.

But the chances are they've got a good reason.

So I think the main thing is just ignore them when they come in late.

One of my pet hate proms is what I call schipper dinners and these are people who
constantly chip in

because they go oh yes yes we have that in our company too.

And I find that it's quite easy to deal with because I do this or that and they're
actually keen and

they're actually supporting you but they are hard work and it's difficult really to
deal with the chip

arena because all you can you say okay well thanks for that does anybody else have
anything to say.

But it's hard.

You know I don't know what to do with chipper and as they are a bit of a dread
really clearly you can
be a little bit assertive in your talk and you could say to them Well you know
thanks for that.

But as anybody else have any thoughts or thanks for that we need to move on.

Or I think that's a little bit too off track.

I don't think I can answer that now because it's not really part of the talk but we
can talk about it

later.

So the old talk about it later gambit always works.

But the other thing you can do if there's a real problem like a horrible problem
with the i.t. or with

noise you know maybe builders are drilling through the wall that sort of thing is
to say sure we have

a little tea break while we sort this out.

Audiences are always happy to have tea breaks.

So if you say let's just have a five minute comfort break people can nip to the loo
maybe get a cup

of tea and I'll sort out the drilling and then we'll restart or I'll sort out the
ITV will find out

what's going on with this computer will start again in five minutes.

Audiences are always delighted by that.

And then you can phone up the i.t. and get help or whatever it is you need.

So if in doubt have a tea break and nothing can stop you.

So you're probably going to give out some notes to the audience.

I strongly recommend that you do because it's a symbolic gift when you give them
notes but also they're

going to remember your talk more if they've got notes they may never look at the
notes again but they

might do.

And also you can put your phone number in your email address and things on the
notes so you should give

them something.

The big question is do you give the notes out before your talk during your talk or
after you talk.

And there are pros and cons of all three of these.

So it's tricky.

I think my least favourite is to give the notes out before the talk.

Sometimes you have to do this because if it's a conference there might be a pack
that's been sent out

or whatever but the problem is if you give the notes out before they can read
ahead.

And they know what's coming up and it just takes away all the excitement and all
this suspense from

your talk.

But the advantage is that they can write on them.

So if you don't give them notes beforehand they're going to go.

Is this in the notes.

So if I'm doing a talk and I haven't given the talk the notes out before then I
reassure them constantly

Don't worry this is in the notes.

But you can give The Nose out before they can write on them and what you can do is
you can leave gaps.

In the notes that they can fill them in so they can't read ahead.

I mentioned earlier on how Brian Tracy did that and he's a god.

So Brian Tracy does it.

It's got to be fine.

And you can leave them on people's chairs before they arrive.

If you've got a lot of people turning up to a talk here beyond that shares with
blanks and that's my

preferred thing if I'm forced to give out notes before I give them out with blanks
and then I might

give out a a finished version with all the blanks filled in after the talk as well.

I don't tell them I'm going to do that though.

So they have to pay attention during the Talk to fill in all the blanks.

Now what about giving out the notes during the talk.

This is what I like to do if I'm running a training course for say 10 people if I
got a U shape of table

so I can get to each person.

I like to give out the notes and sometimes I just get to pass them round or
sometimes I go round each

person I give them out it's like a symbolic gift.

Every time I give out another page they go.

Thank you.

So it's great.

But the big reason I like to give notes out jury isn't really to stop them reading
ahead.

It's the fact that I can miss stuff out if I need to.

So if the talk is going a bit slower than I expected and I'm struggling to finish
everything I can miss

things out or if I don't know whether I'm going to need to do a detailed thing or a
highly technical

thing I can have it as a spare I can put it in if necessary or not.

So I don't have to prepare a pack package just have a pile of stuff and give out
the bits I want to

give out.

So I like the flexibility of giving out notes during and you need to decide how you
want to do this.

But that's an option you've got.

It does take a little bit longer to give notes out and if you've got a big audience
then you do need

to factor in the time and in fact you've got 30 people it's going to take too long
to stop and go out

and just give notes out to everybody it's gonna be just too hard to do.

The other advantage though of having a note is to give out as you go along.

Does act as a cue because I've got my notes that I look at.

And so I'm I'm kind of using them as I do my talks I give out each page and then I
talk about it or

perhaps I talk about it and then give it out so it does act as a cue to tell me
what to say next.

Now what about if I'm going to give the notes out after That's the third choice
you've got the slack

with giving the notes out after is they don't know if it's going to be in the
notes.

You do need to reassure them.

The other snag is they never read them.

If you give that at Pac afterwards a couple of really conscientious people might
read them.

But most people won't read them so you know if you want to look at the notes you
need to give them out

before or during.

But the advantage you give in the mat after is they don't know what's coming up.

And of course if it's a pack you're going to hear that after you are already
committed to covering everything

that's in the notes.

But you can always you can always get around that by saying I've given out a pack
for you which has

got a whole load of additional reading as well as just my talk.

And then that's an excuse to not cover everything because you haven't got time so
that's the question.

Do you want to give notes out before during or after.

My preference is during if I can if it's not a big audience.

Failing that I think my next preference would be before with blanks where third
choice would be after

my worst court case is to give them out before with no blanks so they can read
everything that really

is bad.

So there we are things to think about with no ice.

So finally when you're giving a talk it's absolutely vital to end on time never
overrun.

People hate it if you overrun even by five minutes they'll be climbing the walls.

I don't know why but it's a big thing.

So how can you end on time.

Well the first thing is to have a buffer that you can miss out at the end.

A friend of mine always has body language whatever training course he does he
always has a section on

body language that he misses out if necessary and he nearly always misses out.

But if for some reason it's a very quiet audience or and he's just going quicker
than normal.

He's got his section on body language he could pull in if he has to.
But you could also have a bit of an area that you can speed up rather than miss
out.

So maybe you're planning to have a fairly interactive session with the audience you
know.

Perhaps they're going to discuss things in groups and you could just miss that out
so you could still

cover it you still talk about the main points.

But you can just speed through it.

Or maybe there's a quiz and you can just tell the answers rather than asking them
the answers that sort

of thing.

So having a buffer and the buffer has to be fairly near the end of course because
you won't know you're

in time trouble to get near the end.

So somewhere in the last quarter you need to have something that you can either
speed up or miss out.

The second idea is to put timings on your slides so that you can check that your
schedule doesn't have

to be very scientific.

Just if you've got 10 slides and it's a 20 minute talk just put two minutes on each
just put you know

12 14 16 18 minutes or whatever past 12 put your actual time so that you've got
your watch either.

Probably best to put your watch on the table actually so you can see it.

But there may be a clock at the back of the room that be better.

So you could just compare your timings with the watch.

And I I sometimes.

But the timing just in very faint light grey in the corner where only I can notice
them.

But sometimes I put them in in big red writing and I say to the audience I'm going
to stick to the time

and you can check on me because the timings will actually be on the slides.

Why not you know reassure the audience that you're on it.

So putting the timings on the slides is an option.

And then my third point I really want to make is ending on time is signpost that
the end is coming.

You don't want to fall off a cliff suddenly and if you talk to Ideally about three
points before the

end you all say I've got three more points and then we finished.

And then two more and then one more.

And so you say and this is my final point and then I finished my talk.

We've got time for a few questions but that's all.

So my final point is that the day and then you say sir there you have it.

That's presentation skills.

So make sure you end on time and signpost that the ending is coming up.

-----------------------------------------------------sECTION
4--------------------------------------------------------

And that's it for my presentation's course.

I really hope you've picked up some news for practical tips and that it makes your
presentations less

stressful and more effective better at getting your message across to your audience
because remember

that's all you're trying to do just get that message across.

Now ideally you would do a talk soon.

Try put into practice.

You'll find it all work really well and if you don't have a talk scheduled You
probably do because that's

why you or you're doing this course.

But if you don't have one schedule Why not volunteer to do a talk.

Why not go to your boss and say Is there a talk I can do for you and put into
practice as soon as you

can.

Was the great thing is you now own this course so you can come back to it as often
as you like.

Every time you have a presentation in in the coming years you can come back and you
could just watch

it again.

So it's great to have.

You could even look at it after you've done a presentation and just see the things
that you forgot that

you need to remember for next time.

So keep coming back to this course as often as you need to.

I really hope that it makes you more successful in life generally because
presentation's is an important

skill now.

If you have any questions there's a discussion forum where you can post things and
I go on now and I

put answers and things you can message me directly but it's much better to use the
forum because then

everybody can see the discussions that are going on and it's shared with with the
community.

So please do use the discussion forum.

It's fun so that's good.

Something else would help me hugely if you wouldn't mind leaving me a review.

I would love it if you could leave a review and some some stars or whatever.

It really helps me a lot because when people are deciding which course to use.

Which one to buy.

They look at the number of reviews.

So if you could leave just a really short review that would be brilliant.

Please please do that.

And finally because I am eternally grateful to people who who buy my courses.

I've got a little voucher system going so there should be a code coming up on the
screen here which

you can use to get my other courses cheaper.

So if you're interested in negotiating for example which will save you thousands.

Or are you interested in selling or leadership or one of my most popular courses is

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an amazing life.

Why would you not want to know that.

Have a look at that and that you can use the voucher to get that massively reduced
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So I hope to see you again on one of those other courses.

So good luck and bye for now.

I've got one other thing for you which is free which I think you might like which
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