You’re worth it!
June Newsletter
You’re worth it!
Hi friends
We’re more than halfway through the year already!
How are you doing?
How’s your team doing?
It’s been a tough year hasn’t it and we’re all having to adapt to the challenges that greet us every day.
It’s a time when we definitely need some help to get us through.
‘The time for the lone wolf has passed’.
Which is why we’ve dedicated this edition of the campfire newsletter to you and your health and well-being – because, as L’Oreal keep reminding you, “You’re worth it”
Andy shares a Tony Schwarz inspired energy model that reminds us that high performance is a choice and takes time to achieve.
I introduce you to a hero of mine, Arianna Huffington of ‘Thrive Global’ and share the wisdom and science behind taking microsteps to change.
We all need to help each other in these times so whatever microstep you can take – we urge you to take one today and inspire others to do the same – together we are stronger.
Thanks for being there with us and we’ll see you soon.
Tony, Andy and Pip
The “Living Teams” Team
“High Performance is a choice.
A choice that builds over time”
By Andy Denne
All sustainable high-performance individuals and teams know what it feels like to be in the “zone”.
Lots of energy focused with a quality of “flow”. Effortless, synchronized, wonderful. The quantity of energy you use is high, and the quality of your energy is high. The performance zone is where we want to be. This is where you “knock it out of the park”
Yet, we cannot stay there all the time. After a period of being “on”, high performance individuals and teams actively choose “off”. They actively choose to step into the renewal zone. In this zone we are learning, reviewing, breathing, laughing, picking ourselves up and brushing ourselves down. We re-charge. And it is an active choice. It is very enjoyable and rewarding.
Sadly, too many people do not allow themselves to choose “off”. Sadly, too many people are run by fears and insecurities about letting others down, or fears that the project will not be “up to scratch”. So they keep going. They don’t pause. They believe the assumption that “there is not time…”
The ONLY destination when you do not press the pause button is to end up in survival. And this is the slippery slope to burn out.
Here are some clues that you are drifting – as an individual and as a team – into the survival zone:
- Racing/tumbling/reeling from one meeting to another
- Losing your sense of humour
- Forgetting that life is to be enjoyed
- Feeling like you “just have to dig deep” to “get through” the day
- Hanging in there till the weekend
- Being closed in mind and judgmental
- Becoming more easily irritated by people “Oh, really – we have to meet these guys!”
- A sense that you are running out of time
- A sense that you are stuck/drowning/overloaded
- The experience that “you have no time to stop”
The list goes on – and you can most likely see yourself in it – and add to it.
In the survival zone, thinking is deteriorated.
In the survival zone, creativity and creative versatility is diminished or non-existent.
In the survival zone, we are just surviving.
The future and the challenges we all face – need humanity at its best. If you are operating from the survival zone, you are part of the problem not part of the solution. If you recognize you are in the survival zone, please humbly accept that your efforts bring diminishing returns.
We don’t need you in the survival zone. Humanity and our collective future does not benefit from you being in survival mode.
When we are “on” – in the field of play, performing – we need to “knock it out the park”. To be able to do this we must all practice oscillating between the performance and renewal.
If you do not have a disciplined daily practice of renewal. Don’t kid yourself. We know where you are even if you are in defensive denial. You are either already in it or certainly drifting towards survival. In here, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
To perform at higher levels in ever higher pressure and complexity – teams need richer and more rewarding zones of renewal – learning, improving how we can work better together. You need to choose them consciously and invest in them.
When we work with teams – the heart of our work is to create “zones/space/time for renewal”. We do it very consciously. And we are very good at it.
Is it time you and your team developed the discipline of renewal?
“What will it take for you to take yourself seriously?”
By Tony Barton
Seriously.
What will it take?
A note from the Doctor signing you off from work for a month?
Exhaustion so bad it stops you getting out of bed in the morning?
Someone else telling you to stop?
Burnout is nothing new.
It’s always been a choice.
Yes – you heard that correctly – burnout IS a choice.
I chose it myself back in the days when I was running a Marcoms agency.
I chose to put everyone and everything first – before me…and my family.
Why?
Well that’s a big question and you will have to answer it for yourself.
For me, it was probably fear of failure at work doing the choosing – I would work all hours not to fail (of course I didn’t realise that at the time, I thought I was just trying to do a really good job).
Sound familiar?
Whatever the answer is to your why – the thing is – you are definitely not alone in choosing burnout – there are literally millions of corporate execs in the danger zone.
Which is why something has to change.
I am a big fan of Arianna Huffington, maybe you know her.
She is an incredibly successful corporate exec and her wakeup call came when she fainted from exhaustion, fell and cut her head open.
That incident was the seed from which she has grown a movement called ‘Thrive Global’.
A movement dedicated to bring health and well-being to the very top of the agenda for people like you – and me.
Not just because being healthy is a good thing – but because being healthy helps us human beings unlock our full potential – and what business doesn’t want that?!
I love the image Andy has drawn in the renewal zone of the ‘people tree’ being watered.
If you are serious about renewal and want to discover how to ‘water your tree’ I thoroughly recommend this book.
“Your time to thrive” – end burnout, increase well-being and unlock your full potential with the new science of micro steps.
Don’t be an empty cup.
Put your oxygen mask on before others if you want to be helpful.
Learn to value and love yourself first.
One drop of water at a time.
Start today by choosing your micro step – what will it be?
I bet you know.
JFDI.
Living Teams Rock Moments
“Feeling Good” by the one and only Nina Simone.
Watch this – and we challenge you not to get up and move your body to the music!
Well I hope you have got the message – look after yourself – and start today.
Buy the book.
Don’t just read it – be inspired to take those microsteps – one day at a time..
Whatever it takes to nurture the wonderful human being that you are.
With love
Tony, Andy, Pippa and all the coaches at Living Teams
The “Living Teams” Team