Breaking the sound barrier with an aircraft provides a stunning sight and sound.  This accelerated speed that exceeds the speed of sound is often achieved by our military aircraft. It’s called “breaking the sound barrier”.  

Here is a picture* of that moment…

Here is the technical description of that moment…

The passage from subsonic to supersonic speeds is accompanied by some unusual phenomena which lie in the realm of “nonlinear” mechanical events – events involving some degree of chaos.

The first man credited with breaking the sound barrier in level flight is Chuck Yager on 14 October 1947, flying at an altitude of 45,000 ft.

What is a personal growth barrier?         

 A barrier is something that obstructs or limits.

In terms of personal growth, behavior is an observable manifestation of our “growth barrier” i.e. – something that limits or obstructs sustained or future success.

Success is the achievement of something…doing what we set out to do.

Success is defined by you for you based on your values, your purpose in life, and your passion. Such success brings freedom.

A barrier limits your success…your ability to achieve what you set out to accomplish with your life. Most often, the personal growth barrier is displayed with our ”soft skills” or people skills; relational not the technical. This unproductive, limiting behavior becomes a barrier to success.

When do you know there is a barrier?

Look again at the technical description of breaking the sound barrier: “…events involving some degree of chaos.” 

Where there is turmoil, confusion, frustration, poor performance, or unproductive behavior pay attention. When there is chaos in your life, observe what is going on in the story and you’ll can identify the barrier to your success.

Watch for fear-based emotion (worry, anxiety, anger, hate, hostility, rage, ill-will, resentment, frustration, impatience, irritation, bitterness). Fear-based emotion triggers ancient behavior (micro management/control freak/lack of delegation…procrastination/poor decision making…ineffective communication/telling/poor listening…lack of trust/assumptive, and others). The old behaviors are a barrier that hinder your full potential and future success.

What is your response to the chaos?

Reflect on this simple exercise to assess your response to personal growth opportunities; challenges.

Rate your response to a need to grow…  (1=Not!   6=Very!)

• Receptive

How willing and ready are you to accept new ideas, to examine your story for truth?

• Agreement

How committed are you to pursuing the truth regarding what gets in the way of your success?

• Change

How ready are you to replace current thinking and behavior to achieve your next level?

What would most likely hamper your accelerated personal growth?

• Denial – Not owning current reality, the fact of your story?
• Rationalization – Making excuses, avoiding responsibility for your performance?
• Minimization – Avoiding the reality of the situation, “It’s no big deal.”
• Blame – Trying to place the responsibility on someone else…

 How do you break a personal growth barrier?

My executive coaching process is not hard; it’s just not easy to do without support.

Here are four steps to breaking a performance barrier:

1. Acknowledge: What is getting in your way?
2. Observe: When does the behavior happen?
3. Change: What is your preferred response?
4. Evaluate: How will I know I made the change?

The critical skill and practical habit that supports sustained success is consistent reflection.

The best predictor of continued success is the ability and willingness to learn and change achieved through consistent reflection on the truth that comes through the story.

-Steve Laswell

In my previous article  I wrote about creating space in order to accelerate personal success.

The reality for all of us is this…

What got you here (your current level of success),

will not get you there (your next level of success);

whether in job performance or life…

whether mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual.

What is your growth barrier?

What seems to be hindering your future success?

What steps are you taking to create space for reflective thinking?

Please comment below; I’d love to hear from you. 

Photo Credit: Pacific Ocean (Jan. 29, 2004) Ð Lt. Col. William “Chester” Waldron,

Commanding Officer of the “Black Knights” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron Three One Four (VMFA-314) performs a super sonic fly-by for Columbia’s Visual effects unit, while filming for the upcoming motion picture production “Stealth.Ó  U.S. Navy photo by PhotographerÕs Mate Airman Chris M. Valdez.  (RELEASED)

When was the last time you heard the word prudent in a leadership development conversation?

Photo by Joe Annenah

Perhaps, you will be surprised at just how appropriate it is. 

Consider these four qualities of a prudent person:

1. Resource Management: smart use of assets
2. Common Sense: able to deal with practical matters
3. Foresight: sound judgment is used to consider likely consequences…and then, make adjustments to minimize risk
4. Self-discipline: that powerful ability to govern and discipline oneself using reason

Prudence is about the ability to handle practical matters with good judgment.

Whether you are leading your life, a department, or entire company prudence is good to have.

How do we become prudent?

This ancient proverb gives “the secret”…

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways; the folly of fools is deception.

This proverb brings emphasis to a reflective personal growth path. As I like to say:

The best predictor of continued success is the ability and willingness to learn and changed achieved through consistent reflection on truth found in the story.

Reflection, thinking and writing, supports the success of my executive coaching process. It a key discipline of successful people.  If you desire accelerated personal development, increase this practice by creating space.

As I recently wrote in The Battle for Personal Development

Transformation is about experiencing a change in ourselves, usually seen in behavior.  Personal growth and development takes time.  The pace of life, those distractions, and the information overload all seek to hinder the process of growth.

Growth is about becoming more mature.  For this to happen we must create space…time and place to tap into resources that support personal growth.

Wisdom teaches us to give thought to our ways. The reward is insight leading to changed behavior, improved performance, and observable results…growth! How much would you like?

In my article “Reflection – The Accelerator of Success” I wrote,

When you engage your head and heart in careful thought about your Story you will discover truth; truth will liberate you from limiting behaviors bringing growth; growth leads to improved performance and results; success happens.  

Without prudence, not so nice.

Another word associated with prudence is foresight which brings together the ideas of wisdom, insight, and knowledge.  Wikipedia notes:

In this (foresight) case, the virtue is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place.

Leading your life, department, or organization is greatly enhanced with an ability to choose wisely.  The big payoff of consistent reflection is a growing ability to execute.

What if prudence is minimized?

Returning to the Hebrew proverb, we find what happens if we fail to cultivate this virtue.  While the wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, the folly of fools is deception.

Deception is the practice of leading someone to believe something that is not true. When someone deliberately hides the truth from us our freedom is hindered.

Deception impacts our thinking, then our beliefs, expectations, attitude, behavior, and ultimately our performance. Success flows out of freedom and freedom comes from knowing the truth. 

Of course, we can work to convince ourselves of something that is not true, as well, self-deceived. Same result…loss of freedom, limited success.  

In my article “Reflection – The Accelerator of Success” I suggested that,

When you engage your head and heart in careful thought about your Story you will discover truth; truth will liberate you from limiting behaviors bringing growth; growth leads to improved performance and results; success happens. 

Being prudent is about creating space in our “busy lives” to give thought to our lives to support our personal growth, development in order have high impact.  Make a difference!

How do you rate yourself on these 4 qualities of a prudent person?

1. The smart use of assets
2. An ability to deal with practical matters
3. Use of sound judgment to consider likely consequences…and make adjustments to minimize risk
4. The powerful ability to govern and discipline oneself using reason

How well are you giving thought to your ways?

What else would hinder transformation of our lives?

What steps are you taking to create space for reflective thinking?

Please comment; I’d love to hear from you.

Wednesday I bumped my appointment for reflection to have an early morning meeting.

Photo by Omer Unlu

Thursday I bumped my appointment for reflection to apply a second coat of stain to a table we’re refinishing. Urgent, you know.

After that 90 minutes of my life (never to be recovered) was spent on e-mail; of course that allowed me to jump from one really important blog to another.  

Not only did I miss-direct the use of my time, I lost that personal growth opportunity that comes from consistent reflection on the story; the journey.

Transformation Takes Time

Today, you and I face forces that oppose the transformation of our lives and 3 words come to mind: pace, distractions, and information overload.  
Of course, there are others.

Pace – a client failed to show up for an appointment last week in large part because she has so much going on.  The pace of life has her running hard…I even text message confirmed the night before!

Distractions – that refinishing project snagged my attention from a daily appointment set aside to support my pursuit of continuous growth. 

Information Overload- e-mail keeps piling up and all those hyperlinks lead me like a bird following a trail of grain until the snare captures my time and some of my life.  Yes, productivity is affected.  Yes, I’m responsible. Yes, there is an appeal to my immediate interest…no, not what is  primary.

Transformation is about experiencing a change in ourselves, usually seen in behavior.  Personal growth and development takes time.  The pace of life, those distractions, and the information overload all seek to hinder the process of growth.

Growth is about becoming more mature.  For this to happen we must create space…time and place to tap into resources that support personal growth.

Creating space allows us to discover the truth found in our story. Truth brings freedom.

Information and Immediate Interest

The current level of information available is off the charts.  What does the access to information using the Internet look like?

In the month of June, according toThe Nielsen Company, the average U.S. Internet use, combined home and work includes:

• 56 Sessions/Visits per Person, per month
• 89 Domains Visited per person, per month
• 2,430 Web Page Views per person, per month
• 56 Seconds. . .the average time an American spends looking at a Web page

That last statistic is amazing…56 seconds!

How do you think this is impacting you and the ability to process information?  How is the Internet impacting your practice of reflective thinking and writing required to experience transformation?

Division of Attention

What is happening to our ability to focus? To concentrate?  Once again, how are pace, distractions, and information overload affecting your productivity, your creativity, your performance?

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” – Seneca

My concern: all this information is scanned and skimmed without a depth of reflection.  What happens when you jump from one post to another? Chase one article after another riding the “Hyperlink Xxpress”? 

Have you ever spent 30 minutes speed reading blogs and not have any idea or re-call about what you just read?

Information without processing is like a cloud without rain.

Nicholas Carr is the best-selling author of The Big Switch writes about technology’s effect on the mind in his new book, The Shallows – What the Internet is doing to our Brains.   His recent Saturday Essay, “Does the Internet make you Dumber?” appeared in the Wall Street Journal where he notes:

…a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the Net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is also turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers.

The picture emerging from the research is deeply troubling, at least to anyone who values the depth, rather than just the velocity, of human thought. People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read traditional linear text. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. People who are continually distracted by emails, alerts and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time.

The common thread in these disabilities is the division of attention. 

What we seem to be sacrificing in all our surfing and searching is our capacity to engage in the quieter, attentive modes of thought that underpin contemplation, reflection and introspection. The Web never encourages us to slow down. It keeps us in a state of perpetual mental locomotion.

It is revealing, and distressing, to compare the cognitive effects of the Internet with those of an earlier information technology, the printed book. Whereas the Internet scatters our attention, the book focuses it. Unlike the screen, the page promotes contemplativeness.

Reading a long sequence of pages helps us develop a rare kind of mental discipline. The innate bias of the human brain, after all, is to be distracted. Our predisposition is to be aware of as much of what’s going on around us as possible. Our fast-paced, reflexive shifts in focus were once crucial to our survival. They reduced the odds that a predator would take us by surprise or that we’d overlook a nearby source of food.

To read a book is to practice an unnatural process of thought. It requires us to place ourselves at what T. S. Eliot, in his poem “Four Quartets,” called “the still point of the turning world.” We have to forge or strengthen the neural links needed to counter our instinctive distractedness, thereby gaining greater control over our attention and our mind.

It is this control, this mental discipline that we are at risk of losing as we spend ever more time scanning and skimming online. If the slow progression of words across printed pages damped our craving to be inundated by mental stimulation, the Internet indulges it. It returns us to our native state of distractedness, while presenting us with far more distractions than our ancestors ever had to contend with.  (Emphasis added)

As an executive coach I am privileged to support my client’s efforts to create space for reflective thinking and writing.  The result?  Transformation…changed behavior, improved performance, increased results. 

What’s that worth?

If you’ve read my stuff before, you know what I say: 

The best predictor of sustainable success is your ability and willingness to learn and change achieved through consistent reflection on truth found in the story. 

This disciplined approach to life pays big in transformation and improved performance.

What else would hinder transformation of our lives?

Based on the reality of “The Battle for Personal Development” what steps are you taking to create space for reflective thinking?

How are you managing the pace, distraction, and overload potential of our day and technology?

Please comment below; I’d love to hear from you. 

Who might you share today’s post with?

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Photo by Arenamontanus

This executive coaching client is a rising star in his company. 

Working in a Fortune 100 company with 300,000 employees, Jonathan (not his real name) has consistently received high performance marks and has for 12 years.  He is acknowledged for adding value to the company and consistently promoted from entry level to a senior manager role. 

With each promotion he received the standard 5% pay increase.

Recently, his boss was hired away.  Jonathan is on the short list for another promotion. Let’s celebrate, right? 

Not so quick, sorry.

Jonathan has been a loyal, contributor for 12 years and received six, 5% promotion-based pay increases.  He recently learned his boss who left for another operation had been recruited at same pay grade but with a $40,000 per year salary difference.  How would that impact your employee loyalty and engagement?

Based on his 12 year story and factual data points, he made a compelling appeal to his boss; she totally agreed with his assessment.  He is not  appropriately compensated.  

“Unfortunately,” she said, “you were hired in at entry level and have worked your way up through the company.  (Just like we set it up…) Now, for you to be paid fair market value for your position you will most likely need to look outside the company.”

Can you imagine?

For 12 years you gave of your heart and soul to “the company”…sacrificing to meet expectations…developing yourself professionally…recognized as a high performer…fast track promotions…and now, you discovern your comp plan places you in the bottom of the market?

Now, only Jonathan’s character keeps him contributing.  Now, as reality sets in he starts searching for appreciation and respect. 

What will this decision cost the company?

A mere $250,000 to $300,000 in “hidden” turnover expense!

How can this happen?

Business eats people.

By business I mean a company or organization that buys and sells goods, make products, or provides services; “business eats people” to accomplish this activity whether for profit or not-for-profit.  This is not about it being “right or wrong”. It just is. Business consumes taking the time and energy, creativity and ideas, talent and skills, relationship connections to create.

Labor Day, Let’s All Celebrate!

Here in the USA we just “celebrated” Labor Day.  Other than marking the end of summer, what do you know about this Federal holiday?  Yes, we all know it is observed on the first Monday every September, but what about the origin?  According to the U. S. Department of Labor

Labor Day…is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. (Emphasis added)

Note that this is NOT a politically-oriented post, it is people-oriented. We continue with Wikipedia adding to the story…

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City. It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. Military and U. S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike.

The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday: a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations,” followed by a festival for the workers and their families.

This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civil significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday proceeding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement. (Emphasis added)

The original focus of the “labor movement” was about the people…the story continues:

The term labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labor relations.

Although the birth of Labor Day has an unfortunate history, this Nationwide Holiday is designed to celebrate the American Worker. Consider the intended focus…

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.  

That “the nation pays tribute to The Creator of so much opportunity, freedom and leadership” is reserved for another National Holiday: Thanksgiving Day.  

But you ask, what about  this “Business Eats People”?    

There is some good news here. 

Hope comes in a couple of ways to my way of thinking as I look at this story:

1. People: The business of business is people.  More than a slogan, without you, the “American worker”…without Jonathan a great customer experience is not possible. Nothing ships. Nothing is invented. The level of performance for any business or organization misses the mark of full potential without people who make want to make a difference in the world. 
2. Leadership: The role of a leader is to influence how business is done while in pursuit of profit.  Please notice “profit” it is not a four-letter word; without earnings there is no expansion or growth.  In a competitive and ever changing environment no growth leads to death; right?
3. Responsibility: Your role is to pay attention living around the “beast”. No responsible parent will knowingly place their child in danger? Considering a fun trip to the zoo?  Signs are posted, glass walls, fences, and ravines are present to keep everyone safe.   

Here are a few thoughts and questions to start help you reflect on your work-life balance and personal responsibility in your relationship with business and organizations?  Notice the sign at the front door…

Warning: This Business eats People, you are Responsible to:

Clarify Values: what matters to you?  What do you value? How well are your daily decisions guided by your values? Where do you have conflict between your values?

Establish Priorities: what is really important? 

Set Boundaries: do you know your limits? There comes a point when something crosses a line and becomes something else; when being “available” becomes (fill in the blank…) “being driven…a control freak…a perfectionist.”

What else would you include on the sign?

Based on this reality that “Business Eats People” what additional responsibilities do you think of?

How are you managing the demands of business (work) on your life?

Please comment below; I’d love to hear from you.  Who might you share today’s post with?

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