The Student Government gang over at Rivier College finished their year strong by making themselves official members of the “Tom Krieglstein Fan Club” with name tags, signatures, and all. Thanks Kelsey, Chloe, Spencer, Jennifer, & Sarah! I hope you make me an honorary member .

Never thought that Pink and Nate Ruess (of FUN) would harmonize so well together, but they sure do in this song.

Click here to see all the songs I’ve dug at some point.

Eliciting responses from the audience is a necessary action for almost any speech except for maybe the classic keynote type speech. Some audience members have deep bellowing voices that easily carry across the room, while others barely get above a whisper. Most people tend to fall somewhere in the middle.

In an effort to hear what a person is saying, most speakers will move very close to the person, ask them to speak up, and then repeat what they said to the rest of the audience. Three problems with this are…

1. By moving close to just one person, you are ignoring the rest of the room and the tendency for others to start small chatter will increase..thus less people will be paying attention.
2. Asking someone to speak up is fine, expect it has the same negative emotional anchor to it as using “shhh” to get a room to be quiet. It’s better to have them want to speak up, or quiet down, instead of you making them do so.
3. Repeating what someone says to the rest of the room doesn’t do any good to get that person, or others, to speak louder next time, because you just trained that person, and the rest of the room, that you’ll do the hard work for them.

There’s a better way to do this and I call it Playing Opposites.

If someone in the right front of your room raises their hand and you call on them, instead of moving towards the person, move to the exact opposite side of the room as they start to talk. The person will naturally talk louder because you, as the authority in the room who just called on them, moved away and they want you to hear them. Since they are talking louder, you won’t have to repeat what they said to the rest of the group. Lastly, now you are engaging the whole room because you are on the opposite side of the audience.

Try it out next time you are eliciting a series of responses from a group. If done right, it’s a little like you are dancing with the group…but they don’t know it .
 

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Over the past several months, three people I knew unexpectedly passed away, of which I’ve talked about previously on my blog. All three were relatively the same age as me which made death seem so much more real, because if it could unexpectedly happen to them, why not to me? Which got me thinking about what things, in my life right now, I’d feel were incomplete If I passed away tomorrow?

And so, for our communication starter this month, the question is, what three things in your life right now, would you feel were incomplete If you passed away tomorrow? Let’s take one minute to gather our thoughts and afterwards we’ll begin to my right.

<Out Frame>

I used the above story and question during a monthly meeting of entrepreneurs I facilitate. We start off each meeting with a communication starter to get everyone warmed up and thinking on a deeper level. Imagine if I had just posed the question, without sharing my story that led up to the question. The group would have responded, but probably not to the same depth as they did after I told my story. The story makes the question purposeful and will lead to more meaningful answers.

Next time you’re leading a group, instead of just asking an opening question to get the group talking, add a story as to why you are asking the question. Your story will make the question seem purposeful and the result will be a deeper level of sharing and a smoother run meeting.
 

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In preparation for a rather important business meeting today, I went to FedEx to print out some copies. After 20 minutes of trying to get their printer to work, I gave up out of fear I’d miss my train and thus miss my meeting.

When I got to Penn Station, I just barely made the last possible train that would get me to the meeting on time. The train was scheduled to get in at 2:55 and my meeting started at 3:00. Luckily the meeting was only a few blocks from the train station.

While in route, I found a UPS store on my phone that was near the station that did in store printing. I emailed my files to the store and asked that they have everything ready for me to run in and pick up my copies as I only had five minutes from the moment the train got there to make my meeting.

Like clock work, the train arrived at exactly 2:55 and as soon as I got off, I sprinted to the UPS store and then to my meeting. Nothing beats a full on sprint down the side walk in a suit coat, nice pants, and brand new shoes. Before the meeting, my shoes where hurting my feet because they were so new, but now my shoes feel great. It’s like two people bonding a friendship through an adventure. I made my meeting on time and got to break in my new shoes.

Nothing can tank, or pick up, the flow of a speech more than audience participation. When picked well, one would almost think you planted the person in the audience. But when picked badly, it leaves you, and the audience, in an awkward state.

In my Dance Floor Theory Leadership Training, I know 20 minutes into the program I need two volunteers to role play a really funny dance floor situation. To set myself, and the audience, up for success, I start identifying people, as soon as they walk in the room, who might make great volunteers. In this particular situation, I’m looking for someone who is naturally out going, liked by most the room already, and loves to laugh. When they entered the room, did they make a noise? Were they smiling or saying hi to people? Did they dance to the music playing? These are all signs that tell me who would make a great volunteer or not.

In another part of my talk, I need a male volunteer who is willing to be a little emotionally vulnerable on stage, but also ‘manly’ enough to warrant respect. Typically this ends up being a really nice guy who is tall and muscular. 

In any situation, the key is to start selecting your volunteers from the moment they walk in the room. Don’t leave it up to chance that you might just pick the right person at the right time.

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Last week I listened to Peter Bregman talk on productivity. Any long time readers of mine know that I’m always trying to optimize my productivity levels, so Peter’s talk was perfect.

I started implementing three key points from his talk over the past week and already I can see a big different in my productivity.

1) Tie Your Shoes Before The Race

The phrase is mine, but the concept is universal and means to make sure you get yourself ready before the race starts, instead of during the race. When it comes to productivity, it means to plan your day out, before you start your day, not during your day. Otherwise a person is much more likely to fall into reactive working verses proactive working. Peter suggests planning your day in the morning before you look at anything…even your email or phone.

I’ve heard others plan their day the night before. My brain slowly closes down as the day goes on, so night time planning doesn’t seem to work for me.

2) Calendar Everything

I already use my calendar extensively and would be lost without it, but up until last week, I didn’t include daily tasks in my calendar. Instead, my tasks were kept offline in a notebook separated by days as seen below…

Peter says that if you don’t properly partition your time throughout the day for each task, you’ll undoubtably run out of time and not get everything done that you wanted to. So instead, he says to move all your daily tasks into your calendar with an allotted amount of time, and then stick to the schedule throughout the day. Let your calendar be your guide, don’t trust yourself to keep yourself on track…especially in the beginning when you are trying to form the habit.

Here’s what my calendar looked like this week with my tasks added in as the light green boxes (the black lines are covering several sensitive tasks that just happen to be happening this week)…

3) The Visible Countdown

The last step is to create a visual countdown for each segment of your day so you remind yourself to not run over on time. I’ve used a task timer for a while and find it extremely beneficial to keep me hyper focused. If I need to go to the bathroom, or get a drink of water, I tend to push myself until the task is done because I don’t want to loose my focus. The timer is sort of like a fitness trainer on my desktop, reminding me to keep pushing until I’m done. Then when I’m done, I can take my break, instead of during the task.

Here’s what my timer looks like on my desktop tucked in the far lower right corner of my screen…

Three simple actions that have already proven positive for me, but it’s only been a week, so I’ll keep you posted on the long term benefits.

I consider myself a positive person and am always thinking optimistically about the future. At the same time, however, I am filled with a constant level of self-doubt.

Recently, I went to the doctor to get a check-up. It was my first check-up in over eight years. My prognosis was perfect, to which the doctor said,

“Of course it is, you exercise every day, do yoga, meditate, eat a vegetarian diet, and all around take really good care of your self. Why would you doubt your health?”

I still pushed him to tell me what more I could do, because something inside me didn’t allow me to believe I’m doing the best I could with my health. I know I could eat a lot more greens than I do, eat more fruits, exercise more…enter my self-doubt.

This self-doubt extends to everything in my life. I don’t think I’m doing enough for my business to grow it as fast as I want, even if I actually am. I don’t think I’m doing enough to keep my marriage healthy and happy, even if I actually am. I don’t think I’m doing enough to connect with close friends and family, even if I actually am…and on and on.

So where does it comes from?

Part of being an entrepreneur is to perpetually be at the beginning stages of new learning curves, and thus I think I’ve trained myself to always think I’m a beginner and there is always room for improvement. In addition, as the leader of a team, verses an employee, I hand out praise to others, but rarely does praise come back to me. It’s just the nature of the dynamic between a boss and employee. But couple the lack of external acknowledgment, with me always thinking I’m a beginner, and now I can start to see why I’m living in a state of self-doubt.

But I differ from many other people who live in the same self-doubt world, because for me, the self-doubt is a motivator, not a limiter. I use my self-doubt to challenge myself to do five extra push-ups and make one extra sales call because, in my mind, that’s what it takes to move past the beginner stage of the learning curve.

When it comes to marketing and selling, I’m happy to be known as an expert, but when it comes to self-growth, I want to constantly feel like I’m an amateur playing in the expert league.

(got this text from a friend today, but I haven’t responded yet because I don’t think I can accurately answer via text)

It’s such an innocent question, but yet can be so loaded based on the depth of my desire to answer.

Running a business really is a non-stop roller coaster of emotions. One day the sun is out and unicorns are marching along to a happy tune. The next day the world might as well come to an end as everything is ruined. It seems a bit dramatic, but really the swings are crazy in growing a business and can happen over the span of a few weeks, a few days, or sometimes even within the same day. I feel like I’m in a constant sensory overload.

One of the most valuable skills I learned over the years is the ability to manage my emotions and not get wrapped up in the swings. I’m also really good at putting things in perspective, because really at the end of the day, I still have my mental and physical health, with a great wife, and a roof over my head…see, now everything is better again .

On the worst days, all I want to do is rant about it to people (employees, customers, investors, Annie, etc), but many times that’s not possible because I have to keep the positive image for the sake of the company. Also, not everyone is built to deal with such swings and thus it’s not fair to dump on them because they might deal with it in a much worse way than me.

Today I walked to pick up Annie and thought about listening to a podcast on the way, but there was so much noise in my head that I needed to sort out, that I opted to walk in silence. I needed the walk to help me sort through my own thoughts. Taking walks really puts me at peace which explains why, rain or shine, I try and walk every day.

I wish I could say that such situations aren’t normal, but really I think every day I need some time, usually at the end of the day, to just white balance myself. Writing on this blog and mediation in the morning both help, but on the bad days, even all the skills I’ve built up over the years of being an entrepreneur aren’t able to help me cope. The stress is constant and usually coming at me from five different directions. It’s like I’m in a state of perpetual growth and challenge.

I started today with an intense list of to-dos. Not a long list of silly little things, but rather a short list of really important, but hard, action items (e.g. build a marketing deck, update pitch deck, update the five year projections, etc). In the past, these are the kind of to-dos that I probably would’ve pushed off because they fell into Stephen Covey’s “important, but not urgent” quadrant.

I ended the day having checked off every single item on my list and man does it feel good. I equate the feeling to having a great physical workout at the gym, but in this case it’s a great mental work out. My brain is tired, but in an odd way energized too. Just like my body feels after a great workout.

I’ve talked before about the idea of pushing myself mentally in everything, and it’s days like this when my training really pays off. As my own boss, the ability for me to internally hold myself accountable is critical.