Time for a BreakPoint...Again and Always!

BreakPoint Solutions was deliberately chosen as the name for my leadership development and consultancy firm in 2017. Not that the naming of any company or venture is ever random. But as it was launched, I realized there was an opportunity to capture the essence of what this venture was going to be about, who we wanted to be, and what we hoped to achieve. The definition is intended to convey the power of coaching, leadership self-awareness, and strategic intent that encompasses our work here at BreakPoint:

"an intentional stopping point or place to pause, an opportunity to derive new knowledge, establish commitment to a new direction in one's career or life...allowing one to evaluate a current path, effort and results, inspect one's environment, and reset for future success."

Singular events like COVID; conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa; and even major weather events can put our lives into a definitive - if involuntary - pause and, at the very least, a short-term enforced resetting of priorities. Some of these events can cause us to question future direction and present action. Should we ride out the particular storm? Should we change directions? What is the timing related to those major decisions? How fast or slow should we move? Do our core beliefs or values still serve us?  

Beyond managing and/or leading through these major events, how can we, as leaders and individuals, effectively and constructively use these times of enforced pause? One of the requirements of leaders is to avoid getting caught up in the crisis of the moment. We are singularly called to think strategically, keep our "eyes up", and chart a course across the stormy waters through to the murky future. Or, even more powerfully, convince those we lead that far from being murky, we have been able to craft a very clear and powerful vision to which others should follow us. As leaders we have to act to calm the waters for those who we purport to lead, not add gas to the proverbial fire. Easier said than done I know. I also realize that for some businesses, the long-term feels like it can only be measured in months, weeks, or even days as we keep an eye on cash reserves and expenses. 

As an executive coach, entrepreneur, and small business owner I have always tried to practice what I preach. Not to simply throw tools, templates, and resources at my clients without actually putting those same tools to use in developing and guiding my business and personal development.  

What do times of pause mean to me? What does it cause me to do? How am I remaining strategic and visionary while riding the waves of sometimes storm-tossed seas? How am I using a BreakPoint? How am I creating a BreakPoint?

I've consistently gone back to at least two tools or resources on a consistent basis.  At the first and simplest level, I review my own leadership and personality assessments. This includes emotional intelligence, Total Strengths Deployment Inventory (TSDI), and Myers-Briggs. Why am I doing this? I recognize that at times I am - and we all do - operating under new, sustained, and significant stresses in all aspects of our lives (personal and professional) and may then not be not operating from our best place. The review of my assessment results helps me make the unconscious conscious, arms me with a better ability (with effort) to slow down and reset, and ultimately be in a better place to continue to be relatively sane, productive, and present for others.

The other core tool for me is my own personal business plan. While I have always approached the concept of this plan - and strategic planning in general - as a dynamically supportive process and document, it has been made abundantly clear through 25+ years of leadership experience and 13+ years of coaching/consulting that the assumptions that inform our plans at any point in time must continually be evaluated and rightsized. As the environment around us changes we must touch base with our preferred vision, re-evaluate our values, and certainly reset strategies and tactics accordingly. This is simple, honest, and realistic.   

Throughout this process I still have choice in terms of how I respond to my changing reality. For some, a crisis might reinforce the futility of planning at all. What's the point? We are merely railing against the wind and creating the delusion of control. I don't believe that. I'm not content to believe that I am merely subject to the winds of predetermined fate. I don't believe that any of us can truly function without a sense of our core self and a desired future state we wish to achieve. But then I have always remained idealistic despite a number of significant bumps in both my personal and professional life.  

This is where the value of my personal business plan comes into play.  This is more than just a plan for the business of BreakPoint Solutions or my own individual coaching/consulting practice. It encompasses concepts of Mission, Vision, Values, short through long-term objectives, strategies, and tactics. It also encompasses the entirety of planning for the WHOLE of me: personal, family, and professional. 

The need for an ongoing review of the plan has always been reinforced by new environmental realities. These points of assessment have helped reinforce the essential soundness of my Mission and Vision. I am confident that I am pursuing the right things for the right reasons.  

Strategies, tactics, and targets for any given time are definitely dynamic - and this also provides the opportunity to ensure I am living in accordance to my stated Values. While things like vacations in Europe might have to be reconsidered, or the purchase of the Star Trek Lego set deferred, what has been reinforced is the need to spend quality time with a supportive network. Balance and Fun remain essential. I just need to do it differently right now.

From a business and professional standpoint, my Values and the rest of my plan call me to continue to focus on being of service to my clients. Coaching has never been more relevant to those being challenged by a dynamically changing environment. Connection versus isolation. My personal points of pause have always afforded me the opportunity to invest in a range of offerings that have been in my idea bucket for months, if not years. I've pulled the trigger on getting some of these products trademarked and copyrighted. I'm still building the legacy for years to come despite short-term challenges.

Long story short, any pause, while at first unwelcome, can form the basis for resetting, getting further clarity on what is important and what is necessary, and sets the foundation for greater strength coming out of the storm when it passes.

Don't just wait for a forced pause. Create your own regular BreakPoints to your best advantage. Be strategic and intentional in getting off of your personal treadmill. Slow down to go fast. Establish and confirm your priorities. Build hope for yourself, your team, and your family. You can take advantage of a "crisis" in this way AND you create an enforced pause to your advantage. We can build stronger foundations. We can continue to live our Mission fully and achieve our long-term Vision. It's About Leadership and It's About Leadership of Self.  

_________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-918-0009

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Positive, not Pollyanna

A growing edge for my personal and leadership journey has revolved around the benefits of building and maintaining a positive mindset. My leadership journey has benefited from any number of leadership assessments that have helped me identify opportunities for growth. I have certainly been exposed to a variety of thought leaders - through books or personal connection - that have helped me explore concepts such as emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and resilience. Perhaps ironically, as a coach/consultant/ facilitator, the greatest insights on the power of a positive mindset come from seeing how my leadership and organizational clients are challenged when they DON'T adopt a positive frame of reference and instead succumb to a host of "what if" scenarios that are decidedly negative in nature. 

May this be the year you learn to believe in yourself...

May this be the year you do not give up on who you were meant to be.

Brianna Wiest

In recent weeks I have had more than a few opportunities to work with individual leaders and teams as they navigate a range of negative experiences. Sometimes these experiences are real and tangible: legal action, less than ideal performance reviews, less than ideal organizational metrics, negative media coverage. More often than not, however, there is a lot more that we imagine might be happening behind the scenes or could possibly happen in the near future. We anticipate or borrow trouble or challenges that may not come. As a result, we can expend a lot of emotional, mental, and physical energy on events that may never transpire. And even if they do transpire, we may find that the consequences of these events taking place is not as dire as we expected.

As the title of the blog implies, I am not suggesting there is not value in preparation and anticipation; one certainly cannot lead self or others with wishful thinking, operating in blissful ignorance of potential issues that any competent leader would prepare for. However, I would have you question what balance you are living into with your day-to-day life - personal and professional. In the course of your day or week, do you note on balance that you are planning for and anticipating positive experiences or realities? Or do you operate more in a space of tension, anxiety, and even dread for what might come? Too often I see a lot of the latter reality and, as a consequence, we exhaust ourselves by constant vigilance.  This is not just a soft or touchy-feely statement. Being in a constant state of vigilance starts to manifest in real, tangible, and negative ways for you as a leader and with your team and could look like increased heart rate and blood pressure, fatigue and exhaustion, lowered mental and physical resilience, impaired memory and emotional regulation, and a range of behavioural changes (e.g., jumpy, overreactions).

While we can value and appreciate maintaining a state of readiness - and our professional lives seem to reward situational awareness and strategic readiness - it is clear to me that we need to reset our mental dials to achieve far better balance with what is positively working for us now and what we could reasonably expect or create for ourselves in the future. Easier said than done? Yes. Sorry, no easy answer here! Most of us have spent years, if not decades honing our survival instincts which mostly have to do with anticipating and responding to real or perceived threats. It will take disciplined thought and disciplined practice to help you balance yourself going forward. Here are some suggestions on furthering a positive mindset that will support your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

First, I would recommend starting your day with positive affirmations. This can take on a variety of forms, but whatever your approach, I personally would vouch for writing something for yourself on a daily basis.  For the past couple of years, I have been diligent in journalling, writing something. Some days this exercise can be quite extensive and other days I find time pressures and other circumstances restrict my efforts. Regardless, I can say that I have rarely missed a day for quite some time. I work on the same key questions every day:

• What's ACTUALLY happened (versus what I imagine has/will happen)?
• How am I feeling (process what's going on for me, discover why, assess what it means to me)?
• What do I NEED to do today (helps me to feel in control of myself and right size what I can realistically get done)?
• What am I grateful for?

This last question is quite important, and I always start the answer to this question with being grateful for me.  I have great skills, values, and qualities that have seen me through challenging times in the past, serve me well now, and will serve me in the future. This exercise will fortify you against the slings and arrows of others who, for a variety of reasons, may be looking to bring you down a notch or two. While we have to be open to some learning from all these external forces, we have to appreciate that very often the negatives being thrown our way reflect more on those doing the mudslinging than on us as human beings.  It's lonely at the top! If you are a leader or a person of values, you can expect that as you seek to change things - organization, culture, systems - you are going to come up against resistance. That is part of good leadership, and it is part of life. 

Second, and related to the lonely at the top perspective on leadership, make sure you cultivate and remain in touch with a professional and personal network. As I have often said, "our mind is a dangerous neighbourhood to go into alone".  We can conjure up a lot of shadows, demons, and challenges for ourselves that don't hold up well in the light of the day. Use your network to right size reality.

Reminding ourselves to not be delusional about "facts" is fine. Appreciating that we have something to learn is also advisable. Again, I'm not talking about wearing rose-colored glasses and thinking that we are infallible or omnipotent. Evaluate what is happening and is being said, but don't give someone or something more power over you than they deserve. 

Third, be conscious of how you are showing up for others, whether that be the family you are a part of, the friends you associate with, or the team you lead. Your presence and actions have impact. Your response to a situation is a big part of how that situation will evolve and resolve. Step positively into challenges, remind yourself that you have overcome challenges in the past, pay attention to what is happening for you and to you, and how aligned your feelings and actions are with your core values and beliefs. One of the biggest challenges in navigating real or perceived adversity is letting someone else knock you off your centre. This is why it is so critical to start each day with positive affirmations, reminding ourselves about who we are and our positive vision for the future.  

Don't expect that others will change because you intentionally and mindfully take on a more positive mindset. In fact, you may find the behaviours of others ramping up in the short-term as they realize they are having less impact on you! Recognize this for what it is. Stay committed to your path.  Don't spend too much time and energy swatting away the mosquitoes that will want to distract you from the power of yourself and your vision.  

Create and keep a powerful vision for yourself. As a leader, do the same for your team. Draw energy and excitement from the good things happening for you now. Draw energy and excitement from the realization that there is so much more to be realized and experienced.

Leadership - and personal growth - is about self-discipline. Start changing your mindset.  Start recognizing and building on the positive. It's all about leadership!

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
Executive Coach/Consultant
BreakPoint Solutions
gregh@breakpoint.solutions
780-918-0009

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

• • 
    

Inspiring Yourself to Being Better

I had originally started with a working title of "Inspiring Yourself to Greatness!" for this blog and then as I continued to ponder my subject matter, I shifted to being better. Why the change? Lived experience without a doubt.  There is a paradox inherent in becoming better or the pursuit of greatness. At least that is how I see it. One the one hand, I can say with conviction that I have always been highly goal-oriented.  No doubt that comes from how I was raised and the expectations for achievement from my parents: finish high school, go to university, start a good career, raise a family, and so on. However, I can also say that those goals and expectations were also a significant source of frustration, anxiety, and stress! Over time life has a way of teaching us that some of the goals and expectations set for us were actually never meant for us nor were they going to give us a happy life.

In the past several years, I have really dug into this paradox of goals and expectations. On the one hand I am still a firm believer that one should set some goals and expectations for oneself. Even set some personal Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). These "dreams" can be a great source of inspiration and motivation. On the other hand, I have also learned that life rarely proceeds in any kind of linear or predictable fashion - either for good or bad. Our recent pandemic experience is but one big example of that.  As a direct result of the pandemic, I would say that my work has irrevocably taken a shift from being predominantly in-person engagements to being at least 50/50 in-person to virtual work. Just prior to the seismic shift wrought by the pandemic, my goals and expectations were ones of continued growth or certainly stabilizing at the significant level of work I had created since 2012. COVID upended those expectations and called on me to pivot. What I can say, however, looking back, is that being open to change, opportunity, and new realities has led me to the creation of a series of leadership development modules that I had always thought about but never created.  In addition, the forced change has opened up a plethora of new international work that I would never have imagined back in 2019.  

Given that soliloquy, what do I suggest to be the takeaways within the context of the blog title - how do we inspire ourselves to be better (if not great)? A few thoughts spring to mind.

First, I advise you to really dig into what you want out of your personal and professional lives. REALLY DIG IN! For most of us, a lot of what we are pursuing is done unconsciously. We have built up a series of goals and expectations over time because that seems like something we are supposed to be doing. Society and social media don't help us in this regard and it takes a great deal of courage and intentionality to walk to the pace of a different drummer. 

As I say this, I truly hope that your starting point in this self-reflection is your personal life. I am a strong believer that the work we're doing must serve our personal goals, not the other way around. It seems self-evident perhaps, but all too often we lose ourselves in the demands of work and sacrifice the things and experiences that will really fulfill us. As I have engaged with my friends, family, and trusted colleagues over the past few years in particular, this attentiveness to who we really are and what we are really meant to be/achieve has never been more important. I can look back on the past 40 years of my life and understand that some of the things I was doing didn't really bring me happiness and, in too many instances, kept me trapped in jobs, careers, and relationships that actually did me harm. 

The first step, then, in being or becoming better is to get really clear on where you want to go.  

Second, expectations are important. Even more important, however, is the quality and specificity of those expectations. One of the most powerful tactics that I have employed with myself and for my clients is to drive specificity, detail, targets, and timelines in respect of this future state of affairs. In addition, I have tried to establish a multi-year perspective on where I would like to be and an annual set of goals that are even more specific and detailed. This visioning exercise and template is updated at least annually and is assessed for progress on at least a monthly basis. I use the same tool with some of my clients. Without exception, they have all indicated that this has been one of the most powerful tools in our work together. The key here is that none of us lack for dreams and expectations. What we too often lack is a level of detail that helps to hold us accountable to a specific set of actions and milestones. 

Third is that dreams, visions, and accountability are all for nought if we are not prepared to take substantive preparation and action towards those stated goals. Again, it is absolutely not enough to declare a positive personal, leadership, or organizational vision for the future without being prepared to put in the preparation, work, and effort required to succeed. So, within the context any challenge - personal or business - the benchmarks of achievement should be set and then used to drive your actions. As an aside, I also get a lot of value in comparing notes with others. What have they done? How have they achieved? What choices have they made? Why? Each of us must seek often some means to challenge our own limiting beliefs and assumptions about what is possible. Learn from others. Be inspired by others. 

Fourth, appreciate that the best laid plans never proceed as developed. So aside from all of the preparation and effort that must go into any endeavour, we must develop the mental fortitude and strength of commitment to our targeted goals. We also have to be prepared to be flexible. This is where the nature of our goals - or vision - becomes critical. 

If I define success by having a bigger house or a "more important" job by a certain date, I might find myself extraordinarily frustrated and demoralized if I am not on target 100% of the time. If, however, I define my life through more immutable goals (e.g., happy with life, in supportive relationships, living into new experiences), I might find that my goals/destination remain a beacon of hope rather than a demoralizing, never-to-be achieved endpoint. 

Accountability to self and to others comes from an ability to respond to anticipated and unanticipated adversity, to continue along a path that allows us to succeed rather than give up at the first sign of difficulty. 

This is not simply a "rose-coloured glasses" mentality at work. It's not blind optimism. However, it is surely beyond a woe is me/victim mentality as well; I recognize there are some events that can be so dramatic as to be beyond our control in pursuit of our goals (e.g., COVID). This is where power, strength, and detail of goals, expectations, and visions becomes critically important. If the vision is powerful enough, I am convinced we will find a way forward, even if that means changing tactics and timing to get there. We remain committed to success despite setbacks.

Finally, there are definitely going to be times when our commitment and effort fall short, where we don't follow through with our stated strategies or tactics. As I have often said, this becomes the time to use our plan as a tool to re-evaluate, not punish. In my estimation, the former approach leads to an opportunity to reset and recommit (e.g., change strategy, change timing, change tactics) to a preferred set of goals. The latter approach of chastisement too often leads to despair, victimization, and demotivation.

And remember that every year, the vision can get updated, new goals set, and new improvement targets set.  After last week's experience, after last month's experience, after last year's experience...I have learned and know myself better, have cemented what is important to me, and given me the vision and courage to discard what no longer serves me. The power of vision, expectations, goals, committed preparation, and constant evaluation lead to greater levels of possibility. 

What can you say about your expectations and commitment? What is possible for you? As Henry Ford is purported to have said, whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you are right. 

On that note, I've recently updated my personal plan to support a whole new level of personal growth, development, and happiness that will see my professional and business development serve my personal vision. 

It's all about leadership and in this case, it's leadership for and about yourself. The pot of gold awaits those prepared to truly set the goals, make the effort, and recommit through challenges.

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
Executive Coach/Consultant
BreakPoint Solutions
gregh@breakpoint.solutions
780-918-0009

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.