Self Improvement Site
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
Articles from Angie Thompson | Selfgrowth.com
- Maya Angelou’s Leadership Advice - by Submitted on Jun 12, 2014 from Angie ThompsonIt is three simple lines and the words I most connect to Maya Angelou. After I heard of her passing, they are the words I thought of . . . “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.” - Maya Angelou The advice is powerful and easy ...
Views: 873 - Five Ways to Pick Your Best Development Tools - by Submitted on Mar 03, 2010 from Angie ThompsonPersonal development. Professional development. Leadership development. Regardless of which words you use, chances are as the New Year begins, you are thinking about some sort of development; some sort of approach to creating change, growth and advancement in your life. As you think ...
Views: 872 - Get Your Message Across by Creating Powerful Stories - by Submitted on Sep 17, 2007 from Angie ThompsonStories are an incredibly powerful way to communicate. But you don’t have to take it from me. Consider Plato’s view: “Those who tell stories rule society.” Perhaps you don’t want to rule society, but you would like to be a bit more influential. Creative writing instructor Robert McKee: “Story ...
Views: 870 - Five Ways You Can Learn Something Today - by Submitted on Sep 10, 2015 from Angie ThompsonLearning. In a world where change seems to come hurling toward us like a bullet train, we know learning is needed just to survive, let alone thrive. And while most everyone would nod at the idea that we must be lifelong learners, the list of excuses people have for why they aren’t and can’t be ...
Views: 868 - Ten Questions to Ask After Setting Your Goals - by Submitted on Jul 03, 2015 from Angie ThompsonLots of people set goals. Far fewer achieve them. There are a lot of reasons why that happens, not the least of which is that people treat the goal setting process as an achievement; which it isn’t really. We don’t set goals as the outcome. We set goals to get goals. (Tweet That) Yes, setting ...
Views: 868 - What Leaders Must Do When Failure Strikes - by Submitted on Apr 27, 2015 from Angie ThompsonFailure happens to all of us. And as leaders, how we deal with it is important – for ourselves, and for the lasting message it sends to others. Recently we experienced one of our most public failures. Guy Harris and I were in our studio during what was supposed to be an awesome three hour live ...
Views: 868 - Five Key Conversations to Have with Your New Boss - by Submitted on Oct 06, 2011 from Angie ThompsonRecently promoted? Leadership and learning expert Kevin Eikenberry shares the 5 conversations you need to have with your new boss - right away. (These work even if you're a veteran.) If you`ve just been promoted, this is obviously for you. If you have been in your role for awhile, but your ...
Views: 867 - Unlock Conversation With These Seven Question Keys - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2015 from Angie ThompsonWe have all encountered locked doors in our lives. Most of them are literal slabs of wood or metal, keeping us from moving to someplace we want to go. And to get through doors, keys are required. The keys I am sharing with you today however, unlock more than a literal door. They are key ways to ...
Views: 867 - Making These Decisions Will Change Your Life - by Submitted on Feb 25, 2008 from Angie ThompsonWe all make choices every day. In fact, one way to look at your life is to consider it as the sum total of all the choices you have made. It is easy to think about that in the big picture, think for example, about these choices: -Whether to finish High School (or not) -Whether to go to college ...
Views: 865 - How “U-Pick” Your Relationships and Results - by Submitted on May 11, 2015 from Angie ThompsonNote: The essay that follows was written several years ago and comes from my book Vantagepoints on Learning and Life. The lessons are as true as ever. I share this as a day-after-Mother’s Day tribute to my mom. Thanks Mom – I love you. My mother emailed me about an experience she had last week ...
Views: 864 - 9 Reasons Organizations Don’t Train Their Leaders - by Submitted on Dec 01, 2014 from Angie ThompsonThere are hundreds of companies large and small that offer services to help leaders grow and get greater results, ours included. This means there is a large market of organizations that look for, secure and use these services to equip their leaders to become more effective. There are many more ...
Views: 861 - THE Recency Illusion - What It Is and What It Means To Leaders - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2015 from Angie ThompsonIt is a phrase most often used in relationship to language usage, but when coined by linguist Arnold Zwicky, he defined it much more broadly as “the belief that things you have noticed only recently are in fact recent.” Here are two interesting language examples: • You might think that the use ...
Views: 860 - Exercise Your Learning Muscles - by Submitted on Dec 09, 2007 from Angie ThompsonRecently I was asked to be interviewed for a podcast, and the interviewer asked me to pick a couple of articles from his website to comment on during the interview. As I reviewed the site and looked at a variety of articles, I selected two and decided that rather than just commenting on each, I ...
Views: 858 - How Improving Your Coaching Skills Will Improve Your Life - by Submitted on Oct 13, 2015 from Angie ThompsonWait a minute Kevin...isn’t coaching supposed to be about the person we are coaching, not about us? Yes, the best coaches do put 100% of their focus on helping the other person become more successful and confident. So if this is true, then why are you writing about how the coach will benefit? ...
Views: 857 - Six Reasons Why Boundaries Help Everyone Be More Successful - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2014 from Angie ThompsonThere are all sorts of boundaries in our lives. Boundaries define the playing field for most sports. Fences provide boundaries for homes and farms. Walls keep people in, or out. These are obvious and clear boundaries. There are others that while we know they exist, there isn’t a physical ...
Views: 857 - What Leaders Can Learn From Walt Disney - by Submitted on Dec 16, 2014 from Angie ThompsonOn December 15, 1966 Walt Disney died. His legacy and vision have lived on and expanded in amazing ways in the 48 years since his death. Walt has long been one of my business heroes – after all, look at what he created, and all done with the fabulous outcome of helping people smile, laugh and ...
Views: 856 - The Unexpected Perils of Balance - by Submitted on Jun 03, 2009 from Angie ThompsonBalance. For many balance represents the Holy Grail. You might aspire to: Work/Life Balance. A balanced approach to your business strategy. A desire to please all Customers. And yet, often, you don`t really think about what that means in terms of your decision making; what you stand for, ...
Views: 855 - There's No Such Thing as Organizational Change - by Submitted on Jan 24, 2012 from Angie ThompsonThere’s No Such Thing as Organizational Change It is everywhere. . . . . . Political leaders promoting changing policies. . . . Organizational leadership touting new products or strategies. . . . Team leaders outlining a process improvement. Leaders everywhere think their job is ...
Views: 855 - A Starter Collection of Questions - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2007 from Angie ThompsonPeople collect everything from McDonalds Happy Meal toys to antique guns to books to cars. Of all the things you’ve heard of people collecting, perhaps questions isn’t on that list. Collecting questions might seem unusual, but consider this: people typically collect things for at least on of ...
Views: 854 - The Insurance Every Leader Needs - by Submitted on Feb 18, 2015 from Angie ThompsonInsurance. We have it for many things: for our lives, for our cars, for our home, for our health, for our identities, for our cell phones (!) and much more. We are purchasing this insurance as a safety net against something bad happening. While different people have different risk tolerances, ...
Views: 853 - Looking at the World Through a Learning Lens - by Submitted on Jun 22, 2015 from Angie ThompsonEveryone would agree that we can learn from our life experiences. And everyone does. But while we all have experiences every day, have you noticed that some people seem to glean far more from those experiences than others? If you would like to better harvest the lessons from your experiences, ...
Views: 851 - 5 Ways to Share Your Leadership Influence - by Submitted on Oct 07, 2009 from Angie ThompsonThe young leader might not recognize it, and the veteran may no longer think about it, but neither situation obscures the truth: leaders influence all the time. At one level this makes complete sense. After all, as leaders we are trying to take people towards a desired destination, and since ...
Views: 850(2 votes) - Ten Ways to Turn Individual Contributors into Collaborative Colleagues - by Submitted on Apr 21, 2015 from Angie ThompsonIt happens often. You are leading a team and some (maybe all) of the members see themselves as individual contributors, not necessarily members of a team. They state (and show) that they’d rather work alone, and prefer individual accomplishments and results to tying their fortunes to a ...
Views: 847 - Five Ways to Visualize Your Goals - by Submitted on Jul 01, 2011 from Angie ThompsonYou`ve got your goals set. You`re excited about them and the prospects of achieving them. Whether those are true statements for you personally, for your team/organization or both, congratulations! They`re both necessary and important steps. And, they aren`t enough. I`m guessing you`ve ...
Views: 846(1 vote) - I'm A Salesperson? - by Submitted on Nov 26, 2007 from Angie ThompsonI have found that the words sales, selling and salesperson always have feelings attached to them. Some of you are reading, pondering the title of this article and thinking a stream of positive thoughts about selling, things like: Nothing happens until a sale is made or someone sells something. ...
Views: 846 - Where the Best Coaches Focus Their Efforts - by Submitted on Aug 04, 2014 from Angie ThompsonWhere the Best Coaches Focus Their Efforts I have the good fortune of working with lots of leaders, and often have the chance to talk with, teach or consult with them on a variety of issues including their role as a coach. The vast majority of those I work with truly want to be more effective ...
Views: 846 - Five Keys to Delegation That Work - by Submitted on Mar 04, 2014 from Angie ThompsonDelegation is something that every leader has feelings about. Some feel they do it well. Some don’t even know where to start. Some have seen a good example of it. Some feel like every time someone has “delegated” to them, it felt like they’d just been dumped on. Some think it is something ...
Views: 845 - 5 Ways You Serve Others as a Leader - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2009 from Angie ThompsonRecently someone asked what I thought about "servant leadership." My short answer was that using the word servant is redundant. Don`t misunderstand, I believe in the concept of servant leadership, and what you read or learn about leadership from that prism is extremely valuable. It`s ...
Views: 844(2 votes) - Your Development Belongs to You - by Submitted on Jun 22, 2015 from Angie ThompsonYep, I’ve stated my premise in the title. Your development is yours. It doesn’t belong to your boss or your organization, it belongs to you. I’ve stated my premise; now let me state my case. Who Benefits Most? When we think about you becoming more effective at work, whether that is technical ...
Views: 842 - Six Ways to Think Outside the Box - by Submitted on Sep 01, 2010 from Angie ThompsonIn a recent leadership workshop a participant asked me: "How can I encourage my staff to take initiative and think outside the box? I suppose one reason I saved answering the question until now (in this forum) is that it`s a multi-part question. There are three parts really - the encourage ...
Views: 841(2 votes) - Seven Steps to Setting Clear Expectations - by Submitted on Dec 19, 2012 from Angie ThompsonA few weeks ago I wrote an article about the importance of expectations in the workplace and the four basic areas where expectations are required. As I was writing it, I knew people might want the logical next step . . . once we realize the ultimate importance of expectations, and the areas in ...
Views: 840(1 vote) - Seven Ways to Productively Learn From the Past - by Submitted on Dec 08, 2014 from Angie ThompsonNot everyone values history or the past in the same way. In the quotation books on my book shelves, for every quote that echoes “history is bunk” (from Henry Ford), I can find a “those who cannot learn from history are bound to repeat it” (from George Santayana). I don’t know if you liked U.S. ...
Views: 840 - What Transparency Really Means to You as a Leader - by Submitted on Jun 08, 2015 from Angie ThompsonIt is one of those buzzwords, created by and repeated by consultants and "experts". They pick a word or phrase and use it so much it gets a life of its own. And whatever relevance it had to begin with is lost in the faint nodding of heads (because everyone is supposed to agree) or the rolling ...
Views: 839 - Are You Living Life Like an Olympian? - by Submitted on May 18, 2010 from Angie ThompsonI love the Olympics. I love the athleticism and the story lines and the preparation and the inspiring moments and the psychology and the history ... and so much more. Olympic Torch - As I`ve talked with people during the Games, I`ve found that even people who generally aren`t sports fans ...
Views: 837(4 votes) - Read This First! - by Submitted on Nov 05, 2012 from Angie ThompsonDear Learner, I don`t know why the training is on your calendar. Maybe you are being told to go. Maybe you don`t even really know what it is about. Maybe you`d rather go to training than be at your desk. Maybe training means a chance to get away from home for a day or two. Maybe you are ...
Views: 836(2 votes) - Three Types of Forgiveness and Why They Matter to Us as Leaders - by Submitted on Sep 08, 2014 from Angie ThompsonForgiveness. We see it in public gestures like Nelson Mandela forgiving his captors after his long imprisonment or when President Ford pardoned President Nixon. And we often see the results when there is no forgiveness. Like in the news every day – from revenge violence to road rage to people ...
Views: 836 - Ten Questions Leaders Should Ask Every Day - by Submitted on Apr 21, 2014 from Angie ThompsonQuestions are one of the most powerful tools we have at our hands as leaders. They can help us engage others, gather information, set the stage for coaching and feedback, and allow us the opportunity to listen rather than talk. The power of questions is undeniable. I am a big fan of collecting ...
Views: 835 - To What Do You Pledge Your Allegiance? - by Submitted on Dec 04, 2009 from Angie ThompsonIf you grew up in the United States, you know what I`m talking about. Every child learns the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school . . . "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty ...
Views: 835(1 vote) - Four Leadership Trust Busters - by Submitted on Jun 24, 2014 from Angie ThompsonTrust. Your ability to lead is severely hampered without it, and the more of it you have, the easier leadership becomes. Plus, with greater trust comes greater speed of implementation, clearer communication and much more. It is certainly something that leaders must spend time creating and ...
Views: 834 - Seven Great Questions to Ask Others - by Submitted on Sep 15, 2014 from Angie ThompsonSeven Great Questions to Ask OthersJust this morning, in a coaching conversation, I asked a question that, as stated by the other person, was exactly what would help them past their obstacle. I’m gratified that I could help. The same question, without trust between the other person and me, ...
Views: 834 - Creating and Communicating a Compelling Vision for Change - by Submitted on Jul 01, 2011 from Angie ThompsonStatus quo requires no leadership. That has been a mantra of mine for a long time. It encapsulates an important point about the role of leaders - leaders are in the change business. After all, if everything in your organization was perfect, there would be no need for leaders because there ...
Views: 832(1 vote) - Change and (Positive) Emotions - by Submitted on Jan 11, 2013 from Angie ThompsonFor years in training around the world I've said – “There is always an emotional component to change.” And people have typically nodded in agreement. After all, personal experience will tell anyone this is true. There have been changes in your life you were excited about, and those where your ...
Views: 831(2 votes) - Five Powers of Coaching - by Submitted on May 18, 2010 from Angie ThompsonSpiderman, Wonder Woman and Superman all had super powers; they had special skills that allowed them to be super heroes. They had great powers given to them at birth that made them special. Generally speaking, they didn`t have to develop those powers, they just had them. We too were born with ...
Views: 831(5 votes) - 7 Ways To Harness The Power Of Questions - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2007 from Angie ThompsonWe all use questions everyday – in every part of our lives: as a leader, as a peer, as a parent, as a team member, as a spouse. We can’t get through the day without asking at least some questions. Even if the only questions you ask all day are: “How are you doing?”, or “What’s new?” You are ...
Views: 830 - Maintaining And Building Momentum - by Submitted on Nov 12, 2007 from Angie ThompsonYou know what momentum is. You’ve felt it before. It’s that feeling that things are heading in the right direction; that things are going well; the future looks bright. It is like the snowball rolling downhill – as its gaining speed – it appears that the power of its momentum could make a huge ...
Views: 830 - Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Start Your Engines - by Submitted on May 28, 2013 from Angie ThompsonI live in Indianapolis, Indiana – the only town in America that doesn’t have Memorial Day weekend - we have Race Weekend. This doesn’t mean we don’t honor those who gave their lives for our country (in fact, we honor them in more ways than most), it just means that the last weekend in May is ...
Views: 829(1 vote) - Find Your Story - by Submitted on Oct 26, 2012 from Angie ThompsonFinding a Story for a Specific Communication Purpose Tom had a major presentation coming up in less than a week, and he was concerned. This presentation was important not only for his team and his company, but also for his career. He knew that if he did well it would make all the ...
Views: 825(1 vote) - How to Use Video to Become a (Much) Better Presenter - by Submitted on Jun 12, 2014 from Angie ThompsonIf you have ever been to a presentation skills workshop, you likely practiced with video. Whether you liked being video recorded or not, video can be a powerful tool for learning and improvement, if you use it correctly. Here, I want to give you some ideas for using that video for the maximum ...
Views: 823 - The Anatomy of a Leader - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2013 from Angie ThompsonThere is no perfect leader; leaders truly come in all shapes and sizes. Doctors know the same about their patients, yet they still study anatomy – to understand the basic workings of body parts, their roles and how they function together. While the bodies are different, the anatomy is the same. ...
Views: 820(1 vote) - Leadership Relationship Building – One Step At A Time - by Submitted on Sep 17, 2013 from Angie ThompsonI’m a big believer in the power of relationships in leading others more effectively. After all, would you rather (and are you more likely to) follow someone you know and like, or someone you don’t? In part because of this belief, I have often used an exercise at the start of leadership ...
Views: 814(1 vote)