Prioritize Poise

As I was writing down notes for this post, I kept looking across the aisle at my family as we flew to Florida to spend a long weekend in the Santa Rosa/Sea Side/Watercolor area.

You may be asking yourself… what about school, what about sports, and what is the special occasion?

The special occasion is this… my kids have never seen the ocean and my incredible wife was long overdue for a warm weekend getaway.

When the kids get older, I am not sure we will have the flexibility we have now to just decide to do something like this.

So, a little over a month ago as I was driving home from the Loyola-Illinois NCAA tournament game I had a phone conversation with a great friend of mine and by the end of our call, the wheels were in motion for this trip.

Now, here we are!

Prioritize Poise

Developing poise and confidence in the face of change is something I have been working on a lot with a number of my clients.

Clients who are thriving as well as clients who keep having off-speed pitches thrown at them only to be followed by a fastball up and in!

Last year at this time we were talking about change, pivoting, growing through adversity, and resilience.

Everyone was going through it so there was that sense of digging in and fighting together.

Then, a couple of months ago I wrote about the significance of mental endurance during the next stage of the COVID crisis and now we are seeing that light at the end of the tunnel.

Some folks have reached their breaking points, some are tired of change and feel like their timer has gone off, others just roll with the punches and say “whatever”, and then there are those who utter the famous line “I am so done with this, I just want things to get back to normal.”

That is great, but you know what….we do not call the shots on how much change occurs or how many challenges come our way.

As a leader, your team needs you to keep moving forward in the direction of your goals.

No matter what.

Now, I am going to say something that you may not like but as a coach, I always focus on telling people what they need to hear, even if it is not what they want to hear.

YOU CANNOT HAVE A BAD DAY.

Your team at work cannot afford for you to have a bad day, your family cannot afford for you to have a bad day, and your future self cannot afford for you to have a bad day.

Even if all hell is breaking loose.

It is not about sucking it up, either.

It is about being poised so you are the face your team needs to see and the voice your team needs to hear.

You will struggle internally, and it is the amount of self-discipline you put into your thought process, your disposition, and your communication which will drive your confidence.

Poise is not about the absence of fear, it is about a presence of mind.

The beautiful thing about poise… besides the results it brings… is that everyone can develop it and become more composed.

Poise is developed over time and through experience.

Now, I am going to leave you here as we are headed to the beach and I am shutting down for three days, but we are going to pick up on where I left off next week.

Before I go though, I want to leave you with something to help increase your level of self-awareness of where you stand with poise.

• Identify your biggest challenge right now and how that impacts your thought process.
• How does that thought process affect your communication both verbally and non-verbally (body language?
• How does your team respond to your level of poise?

Take some time for this exercise and do not just blow by it as it has a ton of value.

Being composed and comfortable in your skin is one of the keys to getting your team to take things to the next level despite what hand they are dealt.

Have a great weekend!