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The #1 factor that holds people back is fear. Fear stops you before you even begin to discover your true potential and it makes you self-conscious and doubtful. The truth is, the best advice we can heed sometimes is to mind our own business and focus on making ourselves the best we can — for us.

20 years ago, a hilarious experiment was conducted by a psychologist that serves as a microcosm for the way we see ourselves in the world. In fact, it’s also a reflection for the way we perceive society to see us. Psychologist Thomas Gilovich decided to take a deeper look at ego, self-consciousness and shame. What he and his peers found was remarkable.

Paul Bloom recounts from this 2000 experiment by Gilovich:

“Gilovich and his colleagues asked undergraduates to wear a piece of clothing that they found embarrassing — a t-shirt with a picture of singer-songwriter Barry Manilow on it. After putting on the shirt, the undergraduates had to spend some time in a room with other students and were later asked to guess how many of the other students noticed what they were wearing. The undergraduates tended to overestimate the proportion by a large margin, and did the same when asked to wear a t-shirt with a positive image on it, like Bob Marley or Martin Luther King Jr. In study after study, experimental subjects thought that other people would notice them much more than they actually did.”

Barry Manilow! How embarrassing! What?! Look him up, my friends!

Talk about a hilarious study in self-perception, ego and how much people’s opinions of us really matter. The thing is — most people aren’t paying nearly as close attention as we think. And yet, so many of us go on thinking this and it can destroy us if we let it. It may not show on the outside.

But what about on the inside? This is where it gets challenging.

Other people never know the burdens we bear in private, nor the B.S. we add to our lives by living in worry and fear about what others think. Stress, anxiety, depression, mood swings, highs and lows. Even some of the people closest to us don’t see that from their view. But as we know on the inside, it’s there.

Self-Consciousness and Ego

When you find yourself peering over your shoulder to what one of your competitors, friends or co-workers has, remember to hit the reset button and take a deep breath.

When you feel like you have a huge, bright red-flashing sign over you carrying some emotional baggage that everyone’s noticing — relax. You don’t. And even if you did, would others really notice? You’re only hurting yourself by getting caught up in the shadow that isn’t really there.

Michael Gervais points out in this brilliant HBR article that the cycle of worrying about what others think can have a domino effect:

“If you start paying less and less attention to what makes you you — your talents, beliefs, and values — and start conforming to what others may or may not think, you’ll harm your potential. You’ll start playing it safe because you’re afraid of what will happen on the other side of the critique. You’ll fear being ridiculed or rejected. When challenged, you’ll surrender your viewpoint. You won’t raise your hand when you can’t control the outcome. You won’t go for that promotion because you won’t think you’re qualified.”

Build the life you want without struggling mightily on the inside. Sacrifice the emotional baggage you don’t need in order to get to where you want to be. You’ll flourish mentally, emotionally and spiritually if you jettison fear of what others might think to the side.

Learn more about how to overcome fear and grow as a leader: http://chrisdconnors.com.

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“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” — William James

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We, the people of the world, are living in a results-driven culture. We see it in the workplace. We’re reminded of it on television. It’s plastered all over billboards and social media. ‘If you achieve something — anything — then that will come to define you. And those results, are all that really matters,’ they tell us. You and I both know that’s a bunch of rubbish.

We’re fed a Be — Do — Have system of thinking. It all culminates in a bottom-line approach. “Show me the money.” “What have you done for me lately?” In reality, this obsession with results matters so very little when juxtaposed against our life’s journey. Results don’t quite measure up to the minutes and hours lived in the “Be” and “Do” states. Results take time. They’re often goals we work toward.

And work, we should, toward our goals and dreams. I’m a chief proponent of this! Just know, your energy is far better spent and focused on living each moment of the day with vim, vigor and full immersion in the “Be” and “Do” activities. As you’ll see, I also encourage you to recognize that you likely currently have something great going. You just have to appreciate it for what it is.

We can find happiness, fulfillment and a sense of our purpose in the world in all three stages. Where we get lost and suffer is when we fixate too much on the future — what we don’t have. When we long for these results that may not even be what we truly want at heart. This leads to anxiety and a hollow feeling that leaves us empty and unsatisfied.

Building Your Foundation

Results are both objective and subjective. Some people live their life trying to achieve particular results because they think it will make their parents, boyfriend, girlfriend or classmates proud. While those are wonderful complements and side effects, they should not be the reasons why you do what you do. The results you strive for should be for your own self-satisfaction.

Look at this small graph below of “Be”, “Do” and “Have.” I believe for far too long, our culture has obsessed over the results. As a result, there’s little attention paid to the fine details like values, beliefs, attitude and effort. These qualities form the backbone — the foundation — of who we are! We cannot possibly achieve big things in life if we bypass these important steps.

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We need values to help shape our behavior and outlook on life. Our values become a reflection of the way we see ourselves. We behave in accord to the way we think and the values we hold dear. Take Steve Jobs for instance. He wasn’t a very religious man. But he was a man of great faith and conviction. He believed fervently in placing trust in ourselves — in anything — for the future, then working toward it with enthusiasm and dedication.

Once you have the “Do” and “Be” down, then you reap the results. Right? Or not right? Have you been paying attention?! Let me flip the script on you.

You Have It

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” — Shannon L. Alder

What if you started living each day — leading with the “Have”? What I mean by this is, let’s say you’re an up and coming business executive. You want to create a great path to success. Chances are, you’re already doing great work, building up your leadership skill set and even getting dynamic results. You have big goals for yourself, but you know you're not yet where you want to be. So you doubt. You feel you need external validation, when in reality you need powerful self-motivation that fuels inner-validation.

In reality, your vision of “Have” may be what you already have going for you right now. You’re on a journey that’s chock full of great rides, turns and changes. Start living in that moment. That is the “Have”!!

But what if you do some introspective searching and find that you really aren’t completely happy with your current state? Then start making our future state — your Have — a reality now. You may not have exactly what you want yet, but start acting like you do. Start imagining exactly what the “Have” looks like. Get a picture so vivid, it would make Michelangelo blush.

Envision exactly what this looks like. Lead with this. Live a life that celebrates your future success. Then, start being and doing what that is. It’s a philosophical and cultural paradigm shift that will change the way you live your life each day. It will propel you toward living your dream faster than you ever could have imagined.

It’s how you create a legacy and make the most of each moment.

Looking to build your legacy? Reach out to me and learn about the coaching work I do with organizations and leaders.

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We've hit the midpoint of 2021. How are you doing with those goals?

It’s typical to begin this year with goals, resolutions and changes of habit that we believe will inspire us to do great things. No matter how clear our plans and actions are, we’re going to be affected by the environment and people around us. We’re going to need to rejuvenate and replenish our mindset with positive thoughts and to understand our needs better than before.

It’s why emotional intelligence matters so much — not just knowing what it means, but using its power to transform our mindset to accomplish what we want to most in 2021.

I want to share five ways emotional intelligence will help you grow as a leader in 2021, with clear direction on how to activate this amazing power.

1. Positive Self-Talk Fuels Positive Affirmations and How We See Ourselves

Our inner voice seems to always know what’s right for us and wants us to live our best life — that’s called our intuition.

One book that completely changed my outlook for living was Think and Grow Rich for the first time. This book forever changed my life and helped me to understand what I needed to do to get on track.

As you look at your life, you may begin to realize many of the things you want aren’t even a part of your life. You need to start thinking, visualizing and speaking these things into exist. Ask Why” and “What” questions that help you recognize what you need to take action. By asking these tough questions, you will grow in self-confidence and self-awareness.

For you: Start each day speaking positive affirmations about your life. Create a list of the five things you want most. Then, create a plan for how to get there. Ask yourself, “Am I growing?” “Do I feel happy?” “What will it take for me to feel like I’m living a fulfilled life?” That’s what self-awareness is all about.

2. Use Empathy to Create Powerful Relationships

Take your show on the road. In other words, make connections online and then look to build those relationships by giving away your skills, experiences and strengths for free. You will establish yourself as a great listener and leader who people want to partner with.

All of us want to learn from successful people, and we can do this by not trying to make things about us .

Every time I’ve done this, I made friends. I created future business partnerships. I earned a lot of supporters who then wanted to turn around and help me. Several of them did with the launch of my book, The Value of You.

For you: Use all of the tools on the internet that you have at your disposal to connect, meet with people (online or in-person) and create powerful relationships. Lead with a genuine, heartfelt desire to learn about that person and try and help them. Listen. Care. Help. Watch your relationships blossom.

3. Adapt to Change Better

Adaptability is all about knowing when to change the course, or whether to stay on the path we’re on. Adaptable people take every single lesson they can from experience and use it to their advantage. Adversity isn’t the end — in fact, it’s the greatest teacher. It’s led me to a life I love and I couldn’t be happier with the pain I felt.

What about you? Can you look back on times where you tripped up, got hurt, hit the ground hard and wondered, what next? What came of those experiences?

For you: First things first, you must embrace change in your life. Change is the law of life, so if you ignore change you’re making a huge mistake. Be willing to push yourself forward into new frontiers. Ditch the fear that previously held you back. Share your work, your writing, your art with the world. View adversity as an opportunity to grow.

4. Manage Your Time, Prioritize and Completely Chang the Way You See Your Life

A total game changer — take this Steve Jobs quote to heart:

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

Emotionally intelligent people manage time efficiently and organize their day to focus on their most important things.

You can use “blocks” to plan your day. You can decipher the activities that bring you joy, happiness, fulfillment and success — and then plan a life around those things.

For you: Find a schedule management tool (i.e. Outlook, Google Calendar, etc.) and begin to organize your day. Plot out the most important activities. Create a list at the end of each day checking off the biggest accomplishments and reflecting on what you did well. Then, choose what you want to focus on for tomorrow.

5. Deal With Pain and Use it to Your Advantage

Pain and suffering in life are unavoidable. We will lose the people we love. We will lose jobs. People will say things that hurt our feelings. We’ll lose in business and other competitive endeavors. We will get knocked on our asses.

Then what?

It’s all about how we grow and profit from the pain that matters next. Pain often leads to pleasure for those of us that think positively, work hard and surround ourselves with people that lift us up, rather than tearing us down. I’m most proud of the emotional toughness and maturity I’ve reached by adapting to change and getting to know myself better.

For you: Think about the moment or moments in your life that have caused you the greatest stress, anger, anxiety and pain. What have you learned from these? Take the time to reflect and grow as a person. Rely on the people in your life to lift you up — but lift yourself up first. Be positive.

Focus on what’s next. Use motivation to your advantage — a huge part of emotional intelligence!

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You know that stare? You’re entranced and stuck in the moment.

You only realize it in hindsight.

When you find yourself gazing out the window, or at the small corner of the wall, or up at the ceiling. You’re so fixated on that one space as if it were reeling you in, looking to talk to you, or maybe even advise you. Once your consciousness comes back, you realize that you were lost in a moment. An imaginative glimmer in time.

Something has preoccupied you. Perhaps good, perhaps bad. But it’s preventing you from taking action.

Whatever past idea, struggle, thought, inspiration, missed chance, fear, anxiety or stress that has you captured, know that you may have to modify your process. In order to modify your process, you must begin with changing your habit. As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Take writing, for example. Every writer knows what writer’s block is all about. We feel completely stuck, unable to even commit the action to hit the keys on our laptop. It’s like we’re physically and mentally frozen. But in order to get to modifying the process, we first must change our habit. We must try something new when what we’ve trusted is not working.

In order to break one habit, we often have to break another, or at least course-correct our process. The familiar advice of “the conditions are never going to be right to begin — just go for it” rings true here. When you’re really stuck, forget about whatever process you’ve been following. It may not work that day or that hour.

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you’re normally a very fluid, creative writer that can pump out 1,000 words in the span of 15 minutes, perhaps you’re best positioned to just start writing your ideas and thoughts down in bullet point bursts. I like to refer back to a notepad or journal of ideas or unfinished thoughts that were meant to receive new life at a future date.

If you’re launching a new app or digital marketing platform and your “golden idea” has yet to take off, it doesn’t mean that your idea is bad or wrong. But it may mean that you need to change your habit of approaching your business. You may need to course-correct and try a new marketing strategy. You may have a great product, but you’re unsure of the most effective way to sell.

Try a New Approach

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Dismiss the notion that you will focus your time and energy on anything else for a set period of time. Stay focused on the task at hand. Try these steps:

Steel your mind to be more productive by setting one task in front of you for a defined period of 15–30 minutes

This will help you develop consistency and a commitment to getting things done one-by-one, as opposed to worrying about the many things on your plate. You must break bad habits. A very bad habit is thinking you can accomplish the 100 things on your to-do list in a given day. Focus on the 1–2 most important things, then go from there. Modify when you choose to work on what you’re doing.

How and Why

Focus on the how of what you’re doing, and re-calibrate your why to make sure this is crystal clear and filled with purpose that aligns with your mission and definition for success.

Start with the fundamentals which will guide you and let you know about your habits and decision-making. Whatever fear or anxiety that you feel when you’re unable to move forward, make sure you understand this. Take a step back, reflect and give yourself a break. This will allow you to think clearly and re-program yourself for increased productivity.

By taking action, you block out that which holds you back. You press forward. To move forward, you don’t move backward. But, you do use your past experiences and perspective of lessons learned to educate you on how to improve and commit today.

Turn to reminders of great work you’ve done, compliments you’ve received, and honors bestowed upon you in the past. This boosted assurance and rush of adrenaline will always reboot confidence and hope.

Confidence, hope, and positive affirmations

These things are essential to taking action and finishing what you’ve started. You control these things through your attitude and mindset. Look inward and ask yourself what you can do to set yourself up for success. Don’t blame others.

Don’t make someone else’s problem your own. Absorbing someone else’s guilt, getting hung up on their issues or problems is mentally taxing and defeating. This sorrow deflates us and contributes to inertia. If you want to remain inert, then focus on other people’s problems. Misery loves company.

If you’re ready to take action, be willing to do the work of understanding the root cause of your inaction. This is essential to break bad habits. Get back to the fundamentals. Use your energy to focus on the habits, processes, and execution of what makes you great. Get started and leave the worry behind.

Motion creates emotion! Be willing to act and you will see results. Get massive productivity tips and join me on your journey at http://chrisdconnors.com

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I’ll admit it — I’m a sucker for the movie, Taken. Growing up in the golden age of vigilante films, I can spot a good one when I see it. Taken was a fine exhibition of this genre. One-man wrecking crews like Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were once all the rage, seemingly armed with a never-ending arsenal of skills that enabled them to take down entire villages and cities.

These warriors always had a crime to avenge and often very personal ones, at that. This post is not meant to laud action films but rather to help you tap into that indescribable greatness that’s inside of you. Or as Liam Neeson’s character, Bryan Mills would say, “Your very particular set of skills.”

Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus ten thousand times is skill. — Shinichi Suzuki

We’ve all acquired our own, “particular set of skills”, from a variety of personal, educational and professional experiences. Bryan Mills’ skills were acquired through — we can only imagine — what was a long, brutal career working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Chances are, like me, you’re not a spy. We’re fighting less strenuous battles, but hardly less consequential. In our pursuits, we’re developing skills. We’re thinking deeply about who we want to be and what values that will give to our life and to those we love. We should concentrate maximum energy and effort toward building these skills so they become strengths.

Life Tests Us

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period. — Brene Brown

Life isn’t easy, in fact, life often presents us with significant physical, mental, spiritual and emotional challenges. On the spiritual side, we’re tempted in a multitude of ways to live a life that wars with the inner core — the true self — of who we really are.

On the mental, emotional and even physical side, many of us will change jobs, deal with business setbacks and even deal with the personal loss. We have to then manage the awful pain that accompanies those losses. We meet temporary failure pursuing our dreams.

As we keep progressing through life, it only becomes easier to let these difficult experiences define who we are. The path of least resistance emerges as a simple choice for many people. We find ourselves unhappy with our circumstances, and we’re beaten down from setbacks that weaken our willpower and lead to complacency. It becomes easy to give in.

But we must never give in to that which we know is not right for us. We have to live with self-awareness in order to avoid repeating previous mistakes and increase our skill set. Once we have gained the value from our mistakes, triumphs and all experiences, we’re better equipped for anything the future will throw at us.

Complacency is the enemy of achievement. Adversity will stare all of us down, time and time again throughout our lives. The question we continually face will be: “How do we respond?” A wise person once said,

“Your desire to change must be greater than your desire to stay the same.”

Examine Yourself

“Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

As an author, I write about emotional intelligence and having the discipline to build a routine each day that maximizes your talent and skills.

The way to continue evolving and developing your unique, particular set of skills is to strive for improvement every day. You have to have goals in mind for what you want to accomplish. It’s best to view your picture in a holistic manner, taking into account your professional ambitions and skills, as well as the interpersonal and life skills you use each day.

Do you have an idea of what that picture looks like for your life?

Our personal and professional skills can always use a boost. Difficult times test us and shape who we are. Make sure that you let them shape you for the better. I encourage you to write out your current skills in the following four areas of your life:

1) Mental
2) Spiritual
3) Emotional
4) Physical

You’ll be amazed at what you put down on paper when you’re honest with yourself. Once you have written your current state, your mission is to bridge the gap between where you and where you desire to be in the future state.

When I haven’t been happy with my spiritual life, I’ve made it a plan to turn to search my soul and ask myself the difficult questions to understand why there is a lack of peace and harmony in my life. I have turned to my faith, relied on the help of others, but I have also sought time alone in solitude for reflection and contemplation.

When I felt like I was in a rut in my career, I reached out to trusted friends and mentors for advice. I improved my resume, networked ‘like a boss’ and determined what I needed in order to improve my skills. When I was having relationship difficulties or hurting emotionally, I turned to my family and friends for comfort and refuge. Fortunately, they have always had my back.

The Hunger For More

“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.” — Samuel Smiles

I’ve watched too many leaders become content with their own arsenal of skills — regardless of comparative depth — and then trudge on, for better or worse, finding whatever satisfaction and success they can. This is no way to live. We should always strive for greater things and empower ourselves through inspiration and the desire to seek greater meaning.

I’ve increasingly developed a burning desire to challenge my experiential status quo and hunger for more. Something more soothing to the soul — more in line with what moves me inside and feels like home. This desire is visualized in my mind — imagined and obsessed over and then put into plan so it will become my reality.

Connecting this bridge between what is imagined and what is actionable will lead to a flourish of excitement and a horizon of new opportunities. It’s a matter of you taking your current state, reconciling it with where you want to be, and determining how to do the work to help you get there in the most efficient way possible.

Along the way, fears and the voice inside our heads will occasionally remind us that we can’t do it. Just remember that you have your current and future state analysis to serve as your guide. When you put in writing what you need to do to find self-fulfillment and happiness, you’ll have a road map that guides and plots your path, when doubts arise.

We're all born with a particular set of skills that we are meant to share with the world. What are yours?

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