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What’s Holding You Back? For Many of Us, It’s Zoom Fatigue

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Recently, I had a coaching call with someone I’ve had the pleasure of coaching over the last year. They’ve already made tremendous improvements since I first met them by using our system and tools. But with all the uncertainty that’s going on right now, I discovered they had gotten back into a place where they felt stuck and they didn’t know how to coach themselves out of being stuck. Often our thoughts are the biggest thing that holds us back from action.

A lot of us are feeling big time Zoom Fatigue these days. Harvard Business Review and Forbes have both shared articles on this topic in the last month. Going from video call to video call with no time in between to do our work, recharge, or even to just stop and think. And that’s really holding us back from being our best selves, from showing up with confidence and clarity to create impact for other people.

I know we all just want to get better, and in this time of social distancing, virtual work, and isolation, everything is compounded and we are more fatigued then ever and in a funk. So, you’ve got to ask yourself, “What’s standing in my way and keeping me from moving forward?” And, “Whose permission am I seeking to get unstuck and change my thoughts into action within this uncertainty?”

Changing your life and getting out of your own way come down to just factor: you. You are the only person you can control. You get to choose how you show up, how you behave, and ultimately what happens to you. As I always say, what happens to you is because of you. This is because we have the capability to question our own thoughts and motivations, which affects mindset. And mindset can eradicate fatigue.

So if you are struggling with Zoom Fatigue, use our tips to own your role in that and then make the changes that are going to best serve you and help you create impact.

Get Your Mind Clear

With everything that’s going on, we’re probably feeling a lot more anxious, confused, and tense than normal. While it’s ok to feel that way for a short time, we need to not get stuck. Your mind must be clear in order for you to show up to every Zoom meeting or call with confidence and clarity. To get your thoughts under control, start a meditation practice. Use an app like Waking Up With Sam Harris, Calm or Headspace to start your day with a guided meditation.

Change Your Thoughts

We all know mindset is key. But right now, we need to make sure we’re approaching every day with a positive mindset. If you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts about your own performance or that of your team, it’s time to ask questions about that talk track in your head. Are those thoughts true? Usually they’re not. Actively use questioning to accept the real thoughts, fear, anger, etc. as reality and then move on to set yourself free to get into action. Try saying the positive aspect of the reality aloud and repeating each positive phrase for extra emphasis. You might even laugh which is a step in the right direction.

Own Your Calendar

One of the easiest things we can do to fight Zoom Fatigue is to take back control of our thoughts about our calendar. Don’t let other people dictate your day for you. Don’t let other people drag you into back-to-back meetings. Be firm and schedule 45 or 50-minute meetings instead of 60 minutes. This will give you 10-15 minutes at the top of each hour to take a breath, do a quick meditation, prepare for your next meeting, or even take a walk around the block to clear your head. You will approach the uncertainty with clarity of thought!

Assign a Communication “Czar or Czarina” for Your Meeting

If you’re like most of my clients, as soon as you get off a call you all immediately send follow up emails with your notes, lobbying your position about what was discussed and what the next steps will be based on the outcome of the discussion. But, there’s a better way. Meeting notes recorded on the spot creates immediate consensus and avoids time wasted relitigating positions. Appoint a communication “czar or czarina” to capture all the salient details of the meeting, agree on the points BEFORE the call is over, and then have that person quickly send a copy of their notes to all attendees. Wow, think of how much time and energy you’ll save!

Be Intentional About Making Time to Recharge

For many of us, exercise was built around routine and accountability. Now that gyms and fitness studios are closed, we’re finding it difficult to keep these habits in our schedule. And now, it matters now more than ever and we have the bonus of more flexibility to get it done. So do it. Be intentional about making time to recharge. You can’t serve others and show up well if you’re not taking time for yourself. Make sure you’re scheduling in time each day to do a workout, walk, or even just stretch. Something that forces you to move your body and work up a sweat. I actually do sets of push-ups, pull-ups or sit-ups between my calls. By the end of the day I have belted out hundreds of each.

Schedule Free Time to Think

When was the last time you took an hour just to stare off into space and think? In our fast-paced world, we’re increasingly driven by deadlines and the need to use up every second of the workday being hyper-productive. Taking time to sit and be alone with our own thoughts feels indulgent. It is absolutely critical to free your thoughts to grow and create innovation. It solves your challenges, both in the workplace and in your life. If you never get the space to just “think”, you will always be stuck in reaction mode. You need to create thinking space in order to start being proactive, rather than reactive. Google and many other amazing companies actually have policies of “20% time” to do or think about things that are meaningful. And, while many question whether that really exists or works, what we know for sure is that it does create a culture of wanting to be known for thinking time and innovation.

 

Need help stepping into confidence and clarity to own your story and create impact? Get a complimentary coaching session that will help you quickly get your life and business back on track. Just click here to claim yours!

Back to Basics With These Two Steps That Are the Key to Foundational Resilience!

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We believe the formula for human success through RESILIENCE is the exact same formula we’ve been coaching our clients on over the last five years. And it’s the same formula we’re still going to be coaching on after the curve has flattened and we’re all back to work:

SELF + OTHERS = RESULTS

SELF

Success starts with you. Take control of you!  You’ve got to figure out who you are, what you stand for, and then how to articulate your value to others. That creates real resilience by simply knowing with immense CLARITY who you are and want to be and how you show up and impact the world.  That simple.  Once you’re solid and are CONFIDENT with owning your foundation you’re ready to be tough and spring back or recover from anything. That’s resilience!

So understanding you (SELF) allows you to move on to the second part of our success formula.

OTHERS

Figuring out yourself is the basis for cultivating better relationships with others through connection. Relationships are what make us happy and help us live longer.  And, as humans we need connection!  COVID-19 shows us that now more than ever.   Relationships are built and created on connection and meaning, which is why the CLARITY and CONFIDENCE in knowing who you are and the real deal value (IMPACT) you have to offer is most important – it’s the not-so secret tool to finding ways to connect with other people.  Understanding what impact and meaning you are and want to pursue is the fuel.  What is purposeful to you? 

Connecting with others is the secret to impact and life.  As Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” We all want everything so we can make the world and ourselves better. Both at work and at home, which we now see is the same thing.  YEAH!

Therefore, the most critical skills we can build are mastering SELF + OTHERS.   Such mastery will lead you to results, and you get the opportunity to define those results for yourself:  

  • Is it more resilience?
  • More meaning?
  • More relationships?
  • More money?
  • Better work/life balance? 
  • A promotion?
  • More confidence? 
  • More ideas?
  • More impact?

Whatever result you’re after, you’ll get there by first working on yourself, then your relationships with others.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be creating bite-sized learnings to SHARE our success formula and offering new ways for you to develop the skills you need to get results as we beat the *&%$2! out of this global pandemic. We’re planning to offer our signature Mindset exercises, tips and tools and our Foundational Strengths & Story workshop as a virtual course to help you master SELF & OTHERS with CLARITY, CONFIDENCE AND IMPACT.

So if you’re:

  • Starting a new career
  • Figuring out your purpose and impact
  • Looking for a way to expand your business or opportunity
  • Trying to build engagement and resilience for your employees
  • Want get clear on your value and connect with others better
  • Or want more confidence

 Reach out to us if you’re interested in joining the wait list.

Also, if you’re looking for personalized coaching and attention to help you up your game and get the results you’re after, give us a call at (858) 314-9867 – right now we’re offering complimentary coaching sessions because we want to help you succeed and thrive.  You just need to step up and request a free session!

3 Ways to High Performance in the Workplace

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The #1 thing people ask Executive Coaches is  “What do you actually do?” Which of course really means, “How can you help me be better?” Usually, people know we are Millennial experts that focus on bridging the gap between generations in the workplace. But they want to know how we actually help individuals and their companies?

To put it succinctly, we are speakers, coaches, and consultants who train and coach high performance in the workplace. We work with people of all ages from Millennials and Gen Z employees to their managers, Boomers, Traditionalists, and Gen Xers to help them break through their own BS to lead, transform, and empower results through connection.

What Will Our Speaking Do for You?

Empower your audiences through takeaways that improve mindset, leadership behavior, and empower growth.

How, you ask? We love customizing our presentation to fit the unique needs of your audience. Yes we have speaking topics ready to go (click here to browse our current selection of keynotes), but we believe in bringing as much value as we can to make the biggest impact for the audience. No matter your industry or the unique challenges in your company, we will tailor our presentation to ensure what we deliver moves the needle. When you book a launchbox speaker, you can be sure that your audience will walk away with actionable tools and strategies they can immediately put into practice. No fluff or BS.

What Will Our Coaching Do for You?

Provide you or your team with individualized help and the tools you need to break through any obstacle. 

We offer individualized, group, and team coaching to help people connect to themselves and their story so they can show up as their best self in the workplace and crush performance. We focus on providing a dynamic, bold coaching system that creates lasting transformation. Through years of experience we have perfected the art of  “speed coaching” where we’re able to quickly isolate what the problem is and equip our clients with tools and solutions. And we’re ready to help you, too.

What Will Our Workshops & Consulting Do for You?

Shift generational perspectives to solve the disconnect in your workplace and create lasting impact.

Our workshops are the perfect complement to both our keynote speeches and our individualized, group, and team coaching. We go into businesses to talk about the current disconnect and what the future of the workplace looks like. Through a series of targeted exercises and education, we help the different generations of employees learn to bridge the generational gap, create trust and engagement. Workshop attendees leave with strategies they can use to change the conversation and connect to drive results and create impact.

 

Ready to create high performance and solve the generational divide in your organization so you can grow your business, make more money, and create more results? Click here to book an exploratory call with us.

5 Tips to Help You “Do the Work” to Be More Successful in the Multigenerational Workplace in 2020

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WOW! The new decade is here! And boy is there pressure to make resolutions and improve. Our tips are simple and they endure, not relative to the new year or decade but just plain and simple tips that if you “Do the Work,” you win! So, in order to help you crush performance and be more successful at work this year, we’ve compiled our simple 5 best tips that you can put into practice today. Our tips are real, actionable, and highly impactful – try them for yourself and see!

Tip #1: Relax and Smile

Most people want to like you and want you to succeed! They’re actually rooting for you.  So, it should be simple to make a connection.  Right?  Well, wrong.  The root to connection is simply smiling and being open, however, most of us (technical term here) suck at that. Myself included.  And, if you’re stern, preoccupied, or just not present you tend not to smile. Not smiling makes you seem cold and unfriendly which means people are not going to be able to connect with you. However, a super simple easy way to connect is just to smile.  Try it. I talk about this with executives and Millennials alike. Smiling more is so simple, yet tough to implement,  

If we really want to be a productive worker of the future we need to create connection through trust. Smiling communicates to someone that you’re positive, approachable, and possibly someone they can trust (and we know how important trust is). So if smiling doesn’t come naturally, make sure you practice! That means you should smile so much that your face hurts. Even though we know smiling creates more serotonin and improves our mood we still believe we’ll look dumb or awkward.  Just try this simple tool for a few days and coach yourself to smile.  You will notice the difference and that difference will help you immediately relax in the workplace or in a client meeting. That relaxation will in turn allow your intent and impact to naturally shine through.

Tip #2: Positivity – Yes And

People love people who are positive. And while us humans generally are predisposed to thinking negatively, it’s all about your mindset which you can shift. You have to choose to be positive, think positive, and create positive experiences for those around you. As a matter of fact, science shows it takes 4x the positive statements to counteract the negative ones! According to a recent article from the Wall Street Journal, “a negative event or emotion usually has at least three times the impact of a comparable positive one.” So, this year, make a point to intentionally practice positivity! While that’s a very general statement, one tip we have is to read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and live by them.

Tip #3: Better Not Best

Best can be seen as an artificial barrier, mostly because best is arbitrary and always a moving target. Therefore, doing and being your best isn’t realistic because it’s based on the events surrounding it. An author we met through Heroic Public Speaking showed us that the alternative, “better” is something we can achieve everyday. We can be just a bit better than we were yesterday or last week. We can always strive to improve our performance incrementally. If our mindset is growth-based like Carol Dweck teaches in her book Growth Mindset, we can always be focused on trying harder and measuring ourselves to a higher standard each time. Better every day and in every moment will move the needle much further for you on a daily basis.

Tip #4: WIFTHEM – Audience

As humans we’re built in survival mode, which is mostly self-focused.  That results in every person shaping all inputs as: “how will this affect me?” People only care about themselves. And while you might want to argue about the nuances and certain relationships in the workplace, it’s fundamentally true. We are wired for SELF-preservation. Which means we’re constantly looking out for ourselves, no matter how altruistic we might want to be. Everyone is me focused or lives by the WIFM method – what’s in it for me?  Our twist is to focus on the audience and make it about them. We know that in order to succeed we need to understand and provide empathy to the other person so we put WIFM on its head to create instant connection.  Voila. WIFThem – what’s in it for them?

So, whether you’re providing a service, doing a sales call, trying to get a promotion, or persuading your partner or friend to do something, make sure you’re showing the person you’re sitting across from what’s in it for them! It’s not about you, it’s about them and what you can do to help them get what they want. If you know WIFThem and practice it, the world will be yours.  For more tips on how to do that using our communication tools, click here to download our free worksheet with our GPS conversation strategy.

Tip #5: Story – Currency

Your story, your identity, who you are and what you’re here to do, is your connection currency.  It’s what will bind you to others instantly.  But we suck at it. Personally and professionally we don’t have the skills to connect instantaneously.  From the executive boardroom to our next generation workers, we are horrible about sharing our stories. And it is so critical.  Critical to combine our personal why with our corporate purpose and value so we can transact great business.  Whether a Millennial, Gen Z or a Boomer, knowing your story and articulating it in a way that serves others is the only way to connect and build relationships. It’s what you trade with others to build stronger and better relationships, which is the #1 most important skill in the world!  Learn how to tell your story with a free copy of our book – click here to get it!

Over the next few weeks we will deliver real coaching stories so you can see these tips in action. Stay tuned!

Want more tips like these? Need help implementing these in your own life so you can be successful at work? Schedule your free coaching call today to ensure this year is the best one yet! Click here to book your call.

The Workplace of the Future is NOW – Do You Have a Plan to Solve Employee Disengagement and Anxiety?

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Our clients tell us they can’t keep up because the world is changing so rapidly. The word “change” actually seems insufficient to describe the rapid transformation affecting all our businesses. And yet we’re more connected than ever.  One misstatement, misstep, miscalculation of impact and a disgruntled person’s tweet can go viral at a moment’s notice. We’ve never felt more vulnerable to the opinions of others and it’s affecting our businesses.

Not a stretch for any of us or our businesses, just look at what happened to Peloton recently. When its holiday commercial failed to strike the right note with its customers, the company’s stock dropped more than 10% after a storm of criticism helped its infamous commercial go viral for all the wrong reasons.

But it’s not just our customers that are challenging. Our employees live in this world and they are challenged by the change too. They’re also confused. Hence, most businesses are facing a two-headed crisis with their employees: (1) disengagement and (2) anxiety. Just when we need our teams to pull together, crush performance, and be stronger than ever, actually the opposite is happening. Our employees are instead disconnected from each other or with their bosses. Rampant anxiety is hurting their individual performance. And high turnover is costing us serious money.

At launchbox, we’re all about finding solutions to help you solve disengagement and anxiety to ignite your team and company’s performance.  We’ve developed a 3-hack strategy you can use to ensure your company is meeting the demands of the changing workplace. Follow along as we show you how we’re helping three clients solve their own unique organizational problems:

Asking Questions to Solve for Disengagement

One of the clients we work with had a modern challenge that needed solving: many of their employees worked in the field at customer sites while others remained behind at the company’s main office. Not surprisingly, they were struggling to keep their remote employees engaged.

When they came to us for help, we coached them to start by conducting an assessment of all their employees to help them figure out what the specific problems were. Turns out the employees that spent a lot of time in the field were having trouble remaining connected to their peers, the company’s mission, their contribution, and ultimately their own career path.

With this information in hand, we were able to help the leadership design and implement specific engagement strategies through coaching individuals and the team to create increased engagement. The solution? Double down on understanding the employees needs and then solve them at the individual and group level.  Model behavior, downstream techniques, and stand for the employee. The result? Greater engagement and increased retention across the entire company.

Helping Employees Find Meaningful Work

Another of our clients, a respected financial advisory firm, sent one of their talented young employees to get coached by us. This young man was struggling to find real meaning, purpose and contribution in his work. The company’s mission of protecting their clients’ assets and growing wealth just wasn’t cutting it for him. He was looking for something deeper, more meaningful, something to feel he was a part of and that would allow him to make a difference.

In working with us, he learned about himself, his own why, and the impact he wanted to have. It was critically important for him to have belief around his impact and tangibly see the results of his work (in the form of seeing his clients’ wealth grow) in order to feel connected to what he was doing. We talked about how he could better communicate that to his bosses in order to get some help to create bigger results for all of his accounts.  He was predisposed as many millennials are to create impact.  We tied his ambition and work to philanthropy that was created by the growth of wealth. Once he became aware of this meaning, he could articulate it as his value and extend it to his clients.

Can you guess what happened next? He got the help he needed from his supervisors to recast his own meaning and impact in order to contribute to the team. This in turn helped his clients AND his company’s bottom-line.

He also discovered how to live his own values and find greater purpose and contribution by seeing the positive things his clients were able to do for both their families and for others as a result of their increased wealth. How’s that for a win?

Reskilling Emotional Intelligence

Management at one high-end health club came to us because they were frustrated with the performance of their younger employees. They felt that many of them didn’t display the warmth and friendliness they wanted to see in such customer-centric positions.

After instituting hacks 1 and 2 above, we dug deeper to create a system of skills to help employees connect more readily to the company’s mission. We helped the employer bridge the generation gap by showing them how to reskill their young employees on the basics of customer service, making it about teaching, learning and growing. We encouraged them to train and coach young employees on connection. This gave their young people skills they could see they would use forever. It also made them feel that they had power over their own future, that they were creating their own path to success. Finally, we encouraged management to illustrate how their role was absolutely vital to the entire customer experience and that how they showed up as individuals made the ultimate difference.

The culture at the health club became one that was focused on others and giving value. As a result their young people began to flourish. They learned new skills and changed the way they communicated with clients and their peers. And ultimately, they took ownership of their own self-development and growth in order to provide the best possible experience for the customers they saw every day.

 

As we enter the next decade, one thing is for sure: the workplace will continue to rapidly evolve even faster. In order to keep up and achieve even greater success in the years to come, make sure you’re solving problems for both your customers and your employees. If your company could use a little support in igniting growth like these three clients, book a free call with one of our coaches today!

5 Steps to Keep the Multi-Generational Workplace Human

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With the increased digitization of our businesses, it’s easy for employees to start feeling isolated and forgotten, like they just don’t matter. Where we previously had to pick up the phone or walk across the office if we wanted to talk to one another, now we can communicate with just a couple keystrokes. Where co-workers previously spent all day sitting in adjacent cubicles, now team members can be spread across the city, country, or even the world.

While technology has allowed us to work faster and more efficiently, it’s also contributed to higher levels of stress and anxiety among workers. Because as technology has changed the way we work, we’ve kind of forgotten the most important element: the people.

So if you care about keeping your humans happy (and you should because happier employees are more productive and successful at work) make sure you’re taking these five steps to keep your multi-generational workplace human:  

Communicate Like a Human

We have the power of speech for a reason: to communicate! So instead of texting your employees, actually pick up the phone and call them (yes, even your Millennial and Gen Z employees). Or better yet, drop by their desk and have a real conversation complete with facial cues and body language. Yes, it’s inefficient and yes, it might not be the most productive use of time, but real human communication is essential to forming better relationships and bridging the gap in the multi-generational workforce. Which brings me to my next point:

Face Time Not FaceTime

You’ve got to encourage your people to have meaningful face-to-face interactions. That means coming out from behind the computer screen and planning regular in-person meetings, going to lunch, or grabbing coffee together. As a boss or manager, one of the most valuable things you can do is plan one-on-one meetings with each of your employees. And when you’ve met with them all, go back and start over again.

Provide Individualized Mentoring for Career Success

One thing we hear over and over again from the young Millennial and Gen Z employees we coach and train is that they want personalized mentorship from their bosses and managers. They don’t want to feel like just another cog in the machine. They want individualized support to help them learn, grow, and achieve their career goals. As we previously discussed, mentoring and coaching is the new leadership development training. So make sure you’re giving all your employees the right support and not just a one-size-fits-all solution.

Encourage Work-Life Balance

Work is a big part of our lives. But it’s not our whole life. So encourage your employees to achieve a healthy work-life balance. Don’t give them grief if they ask to leave early to catch their kid in a school play or need to come in late because their dog got sick. If they’re not feeling well, tell them to stay home and rest even if you’re in the middle of a big project. Tell them to have a great vacation and actually mean it. Respect your employees enough to trust that the work will still get done.

Show You Care

Our #1 tip for keeping the multi-generational workplace human? Show your employees you care. Take an interest in their lives. Ask how their weekend was, how their spouse is doing, what their kids are up to. And then actually listen to the answers. Say “Thank You” and “Good Job!” Get to know them as people and demonstrate that you really care.

 

 

 

Keeping the workplace human in the age of technology isn’t hard. It just takes conscious effort and systems that are designed to encourage it. If you’re struggling to provide a human workplace that keeps your employees engaged, reach out to us. We’ve developed systems and frameworks you can implement in your multi-generational organization to make sure you’re meeting the needs of your people. Click here to schedule a discovery call with one of our high-performance coaches!

3 Hacks to Guarantee Success in the Multi – Generational & Diverse Workplace

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What does it take to really bridge the gap in the multi-generational workplace? To transcend age, culture, diversity, and experience? To overcome everything that pulls us apart in order to pull teams together and crush it in the workplace?

We’ve spent the last four years exploring those questions. Along the way we’ve had the privilege of training more than 20,000 millennials and their employers. We’ve talked to audiences around the world in all different kinds of industries.

And what we realized is this: there is a system that can GUARANTEE multi –generational workplace success!

The best part? It’s pretty dang simple.

Hack  1: Turn Your Workplace Upside Down

You need to lead by providing value to others. And in order to provide value to others, you’ve got to listen, learn about what matters to them, and find a way to connect and serve them.

So when it comes to your employees, you’ve got to turn your workplace upside down. Instead of applying a top-down approach to your people, giving orders, and guessing what will make them happy, you’ve got to start at the bottom and friggin’ talk to them! Ask them about what they want from you, their manager, and their job. And then find a way to give it to them.  Make them matter and feel safe.  In case you haven’t realized it, you really work for them anyway.

Hack 2: Create Meaningful Work

No matter what industry you’re in, you’ve got to make sure your employees have meaningful work. Because in order to be engaged they have to connect themselves to the meaning of their work.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re saving lives or selling widgets. You’ve got to give your employees work that means something to them! And if they can’t see that meaning for themselves, it’s up to you to show it to them. Paint the picture of why it matters. Show them that their task, no matter how boring, tedious, or insignificant it seems, makes a difference and has an impact. And let them in on the wins!

P.S. the biggest way you can win is to train, grow, coach, and mentor them to get better to create more impact.  Self-growth allows them to draw a connection to the work that created it – and makes their work meaningful!

Hack 3:  Reskill Your People from the Inside/Out (on Emotional Intelligence)

As a boss, as a manager, it’s up to you to coach your people to be their very best. And one of the best ways to help them is to reskill them on emotional intelligence. We call it connection currency.  According to a recent study from the World Economic Forum, emotional intelligence is one of the top ten most in-demand skills listed by employers. And with good reason! As our workplace increasingly becomes dominated by technology, people matter more than ever. So make sure your employees have the skills to successfully connect with their bosses, their coworkers, and your customers.

Want to learn more about our 3-hack system and how it can work for you?  Shout  out to us – we can help you bridge the gap with your employees to CRUSH performance in the workplace today and in the future!