Triangle of Influence: Therapist, Mentor, and Coach

Posted on January 6, 2021 by David Motto

Just imagine if everyone – really, everyone, worldwide – felt confident and had guidance on achieving their dreams and most ambitious goals. I think this would make the world a better, safer, and more interesting place.

If you want to feel great and have the best chance of achieving your dreams, you’ll want some guidance. I recommend what I call the Triangle of Influence: three people who each play a distinct role in helping you live the life you want to live.

Let’s look at each of the people in your Triangle of Influence:

  • Therapist
    • Sees where you are today.
    • Addresses why you are you.
    • Gives you insights into how you got to where you are.
    • Gives you understanding so you can have less worry and anxiety about the person you are.
  • Mentor
    • Sees where you are today. Learns where you want to be – what you want to achieve.
    • Has already accomplished what you want to accomplish.
    • Gives you first-person accounts of strategies they used to overcame the bottlenecks, hurdles, and pushback you’re currently dealing with.
    • Helps you make connections with others who have already accomplished what you want and with other resources you need to achieve your goal(s).
  • Coach
    • Sees where you are today.
    • Helps you decide where you want to be and what you want to achieve.
    • Offers best practices and research-driven strategies to move you toward your goals.
    • Focuses on internal aspects (thoughts, ideas) and external aspects (actions, communication) of achieving your goals.

As you can see, each of these three people starts in the same place: where you are today. Then, each gives you a different set of valuable tools.

In a perfect world, you’d have all three members of this Triangle of Influence on your team. If that’s not possible, you’ll need to decide where you think you’ll get the most value and go find that person.

If you’re currently looking for a mentor and are still getting your goal into focus, I recommend holding off for a while until that goal is clear. Successful mentors like helping people who are already clear on what they want.

If you’re unclear, work with a coach before you search for a mentor.

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Interacting Successfully on Video

Posted on July 11, 2019 by David Motto

Video conferencing is alive and well for just about every aspect of business interactions. From remote meetings to job interviews to coaching sessions with mentors and advisers, more and more of our lives are being conducted via video.

Korn Ferry Institute recently published a terrific guide to video job interviews. It’s well worth checking out and is a fast read.

Here are a few things to think about if you’ve got a job interview coming up that will be conducted via video:

  • Practice, practice, practice! Spend time practicing your answers while looking into your camera.
  • Make friends with your camera. Being camera-shy is a serious affliction that can ruin your interview. Think of looking directly into the camera the same way you do looking into someone’s eyes. You must look directly at the camera to make a real connection with the person on the other end of the interview.
  • Know the technology. Use the technology several times before the actual interview. If you’re in a conference room or some other location where you don’t fully control all the equipment, arrive early and test everything to make sure you know how it works.

In any interview – whether live or via video – always be professional, be courteous, and most of all be yourself.

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Success Quote: Jill Ellis on Pressure

Posted on July 1, 2019 by David Motto

Some teams will visit pressure. But we live there.
Jill Ellis, Head Coach,
U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team

Where do you live? Does pressure make you buckle under, or does it make you rise to the challenge and feel invincible?

Channeling nervousness, pressure, and stress into an energetic burst that gives you laser-like focus is one of the key skills to being a champion in your field.

If you’re interested in being at your best when it matters most, contact me.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Leadership, Motivation, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation, Positive Thinking, Presentations, Public Speaking, Skill Acquisition, Success Quotes | Leave a comment

When Your Strengths No Longer Make You Strong

Posted on June 1, 2019 by David Motto

We all like to do what we’re good at. You have a set of strengths that you use over and over because these strengths have helped you achieve your goals in the past. It makes sense that you’ll continue to turn to what you’re good at – and what you’re comfortable with – when you need to get a job done.

For high achievers and leaders a strange thing can happen. Overuse of your strengths can actually become a weakness, making you less effective. I’m exploring this concept in my posts this week.

Recently, Wharton professor and author Adam Grant wrote a great piece as a Smarter Living column in the New York Times on this topic. I highly encourage you to read it.

The main idea in Grant’s article, and in the research this idea is based on, is that we need to know when to use our strengths and when to back away from them. By knowing when to turn to our strengths and when to use different strategies, we can be the most effective.

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Success Quote: Paul Arden on Achieving the Unachievable

Posted on April 25, 2019 by David Motto

You can achieve the unachievable. Firstly you need to aim beyond what you are capable of. You must develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end.
Paul Arden

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Mastery, Performance Optimization, Positive Thinking, Skill Acquisition, Success, Success Quotes | Leave a comment

Parkinson’s Law, Leadership, and Wasting Money

Posted on April 22, 2019 by David Motto

We’ve all encountered Parkinson’s Law:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

I’ve been guilty of this behavior, and perhaps you have too. There have been times when I’ve given myself 2 hours to finish some task I could have gotten done in 20 minutes if 20 minutes were all I actually had to get the job done!

My friend Dave Gardner, a first-rate efficiency consultant in Silicon Valley, shares an absolutely terrific personal story about Parkinson’s Law in his “Thank God It’s Monday” blog this week. In this story, Dave and his co-worker (in Dave’s very first job out of college years ago) are getting the same amount of work done in 80 hours a week that other 2-person teams are taking 120 hours to complete. Yet, his upper management is upset because Dave and his co-worker aren’t working a combined 120 workweek (and receiving the overtime pay that goes along with it). I can’t decide if the story is hilarious or really sad. You can be the judge of that!

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Success Quote from Anais Nin

Posted on April 10, 2019 by David Motto

We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.
Anais Nin

This quote is so simple and so profound at the same time, and it lines up with much of the research into cognitive bias. Our biases can move us closer to success or pull us away from success, and it’s important to be aware of them!

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Blocking Noise at Work

Posted on April 9, 2019 by David Motto

Really interesting article from Fast Company on new technology that can effectively block sound. Just imagine if you weren’t constantly distracted by noise around you when you need to focus at work or in your home office! What a game changer this could be for all of us.

As unwanted noise creeps into our lives more and more, we’re all finding it more difficult to concentrate when we need to. And, this implies more than working effectively on a project. Sometimes, we need to simply sit and think. This type of activity (yes, sitting still and thinking is an activity – and a crucial one) needs peace and quiet. Wouldn’t it be great if you could create that peace and quiet when you most need it?

It’s unknown right now if this technology will turn into something useful for us. It is fun to imagine though!

Posted in Achieving Goals, How to Focus, Performance Optimization | Leave a comment

Is Empathy the Secret to Success?

Posted on April 8, 2019 by David Motto

Drive. Grit. Resilience. Ambition.

Each of these plays a part in creating your success. At the same time, they’re all inward looking. That is, they’re all attributes you can cultivate to build up yourself.

What if looking outward is the secret to success? It could be that – even with grit, drive, ambition, and resilience – you’ll only truly create success by connecting with the team around you. You’ll want to work well with everyone who shares your goals and who is part of your success pathway.

Having empathy might be the #1 way to better connect with your teams, colleagues, partners, customers, co-creators, and everyone else you come across on a daily basis.

The argument for empathy has gotten a lot of attention recently. Here are three resources that discuss the importance of empathy in building success. They’re all interesting reads worth looking at:

Crafting Better Strategy – Why Empathy Matters: This post in the Knowledge@Wharton blog discusses the balance between IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient).

The Importance of Empathy in Leadership: This piece at Forbes.com by Forbes Council member Lucas Pols covers the importance for leaders to have empathy in order to eliminate barriers and support everyone around you.

Why Empathy Is the Most Important Skill You’ll Ever Need to Succeed: Here’s an article by Yoram Solomon at Inc. Magazine that gives you 10 reasons empathy is the most important skill you’ll need to succeed.

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Giving Great Feedback: Insights from Daniel Goleman

Posted on March 29, 2019 by David Motto

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, has a terrific short piece in a recent Korn Ferry Institute blog. The post, The Art of Effective Feedback, argues for leaders keeping a balance between empathy and emotional intelligence on one hand with conflict management and emotional self-control competencies on the other.

This is incredibly interesting given all the current focus on empathy as a crucial leadership skill. It shows that no single skill is the answer to being a great leader in all situations. Situational leadership means having a balance among a range of leadership skills and knowing which skill to apply at any given time.

Goleman’s insights are clearly worth investigating more for anyone trying to build success on teams. His insights also mesh seamlessly with Rob Kaiser’s research on Versatile Leadership.

Clearly, these guys are onto something. You can’t just rely on one important skill to achieve what you’re trying to achieve in life!

Posted in Communication, Feedback, Leadership, Performance Optimization, Success | Leave a comment