This episode is sponsored by the CIO Scoreboard
I have never been particularly impressed with people who achieve meteoric results in business if other areas of their lives are going in exactly the opposite direction or are stagnant. What good is it to satisfy shareholders if your kids see you rarely or they see you but you are not present with them? Or you achieve business goals but skip your thirties with exercise because you feel that you can’t afford to take the time.
Since my twenties, my bigger fascination has been to find models of success that incorporate all areas of life (business, family, relationships, health and spirituality) as a vision of success. My interest has been to find and learn from well-rounded people who have a mission and focus on positive impact in all major areas of life. They are far more interesting and usually get great business results as well.
Notably, one of the patterns of highly self-actualized people that I have observed is that they have some combination of experts, trainers, coaches, thought leaders, mastermind groups, etc around them to help them reach the highest levels of performance and to ‘be’ the best expressions of themselves multiple areas of life.
Some Fortune 500 companies invest in Executive Coaches for top level executives in order to make sure that their investments in critical leaders and the teams and assets they lead are optimized for performance. There is quite a lot riding on peak performance. The better a corporate leader performs, the better the company does. It is quite simple. Leaders need coaches just like athletes.
I asked myself - what do top Executive Coaches do with their clients to achieve great results? I wanted to know so I asked Gail.
Gail is super impressive. She has been working with top leaders of American businesses now for the better part of 25+ years in the areas of Executive Leadership Development, Lifestyle Management, Wellness, Succession Planning, and Strategic Business Planning. She is one of the best at optimizing business executives in all areas of life.
Her level of professionalism and insight is off the chart. I stumbled into her while reading her gem of a book All Together Now: Vision, Leadership, and Wellness and as a result reached out to her since I couldn’t stop taking notes as I read it. She approaches business and personal performance as one and the same and believes they are intricately linked.
I am on a mission to get you to operate at the highest levels you can in all areas of life. In this episode we discuss:
The force multiplying power of integrating vision, leadership and wellness at a corporate and personal level. The importance of high degrees of executive self-awareness so you can be observant of how your behavior impacts others. The impact of clarity and vision within an executive’s company and family. We explore asking yourself the question “Why” and how, when you ask yourself why?, It develops clarity around a vision. Why the Biggest hurdle for IT Leaders is Emotional Intelligence EQ. Why being proactive with our own health is imperative and what to ask yourself in order to prepare for a doctor visit. The importance of meditation, mindfulness and forgiveness and how learning these skills can help access reserves of resilience.Gail Voisin is the CEO of her coaching and consulting practice in Toronto, Canada, She is an international Executive Coach and trusted advisor to corporate executives in North America and globally. She is an author of her Book - The All Together Now Advantage™, which is a proven success. With her unique background and combination of skills, she integrates and links Vision, Leadership and Wellness to strategic plans and organizational objectives to measure Return On Investment (ROI).
How to get in touch with Gail:
All Together Now: Vision, Leadership, and Wellness
Resources Mentioned:
Reuven Bar-On BarOn Model of Social and Emotional Intelligences Daniel Goleman Jon Kabat-ZinnSummarized Show Notes:
The genesis of Gail bringing health and wellness into corporate strategies and key breakthroughs. When working for a Fortune 1000 - go across to hire different staff. Staff were working long hours and had no place to exercise and at the same time women in the test kitchen were taste testing and gaining weight giving way to Gail being a pioneer, or suffragette and convinced president to allow them to study fitness. At the time many executives were skeptical and said “what does fitness have to do with productivity”. Healthier employees - improvement in productivity and processes. Wellness and health are critical aspects of success. Gail has worked with executives in top companies in North America. What is a business executive coach? A coach coaches in areas in vision, leadership and wellness and integrate these into their business plans. To maximize performance whilst achieving a balance of wellness in their lives. Why so successful? She’s developed an integrated solution with a compelling brand. Value added coach that works. About the profound power of integrating vision, leadership and wellness. The integration piece is powerful. New global world has many challenges for CEO. Requires a unique set of skills. They are accomplishing more but expending less energy. To be highly successful - high level of self-awareness, and understand how their behavior impacts others. Details regarding coaching: what does this structure look like? Mechanics of coaching relationship at highest level. Has to be a chemistry and initial meetings have to be face to face. Is it high degrees of motivation that people approach coaching or companies mandating it? It leaders in the world - unique challenges. Why is connecting with personal vision so important? Vision needs to be so clear and laser focused that your passion is ignited. Values are foundation for the vision. The more you explore the WHY - helps develop clarity around personal vision. Purpose for living - ignites passion. Personal vision has to be in line with corporate vision. Leadership programs linked to neuroscience, that’s where the future is going. Bringing the whole individual to bear on their life and not segmenting. There are six key leadership competencies: strategic thinking, communication, emotional intelligence, negotiation and conflict management, managing energy and time, mastering lifestyle management and overall wellness. Biggest hurdle for IT executives is communication skills and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - Most IT executives are extremely bright with good intentions. But their natural inherent skills are more on the technical and IT side of the business and not enough on the communication and emotional intelligence side, In other words, the IT skills come more natural to them then to others, yet the softer interpersonal skills, the communication seem to be more of a challenge. Similar to engineers. IT executives have so much to significantly contribute to the organization, so when these competencies can be enhanced, it takes the organization to a whole new level. When an executive can utilize their logical and analytical business sense alongside a highly developed EQ, they are much more likely to achieve extraordinary success. If an executive's EQ is low, it is a distinct disadvantage. Can't improve IQ but you can improve EQ. 26:35 Results are not only life changing to executives, but to the families around the individual. Demonstrating the link, the EQ has a direct impact on work, but also the spouse and children. How do we fully qualify, and how to approach health in general for an executive. Need to be an advocate for our own health. Your health is your wealth. The healthier the more productive you can be. Be connected in your community, to network and find out. Concept and power of Mindfulness - Meditation and Forgiveness. Forgiveness first - as an IT executive you can be blamed for things that go wrong. If things go well it is silent, and if not, then everyone hears about it. Forgiveness, just like meditation is becoming more and more important for people to understand. It is important to not be so hard on ourselves. "Big part of forgiveness is key to our health". Dr Bernard Jensen "Forgive others who offended, and say I'm going to love you whether you like it or not." William Dyer: "Who am I to judge you or anyone? Given the conditions of your life, you did what you knew how to do. You can’t ask anymore of anyone. " Meditation and Mindfulness: Mindfulness - Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD - MBSR - mindfulness-based stress reduction. Meditation is the practice and process of paying attention and focussing on your awareness. Over the past 20 years slow shift happening and meditation is becoming more popular. In the past, executives became used to meditation to overcome a crisis. Change the perception of meditation in the corporate world. Different types for different executives - depending on their needs. Mindfulness is being present in the moment. Can be very helpful to connect to what happens. Practical mindfulness can be practiced in every-day life. Practice mindfulness while you wait. Whether waiting in a line or stuck in traffic. Mindfulness and Meditation can help the IT executives access the reserve of resilience. It’s not a competition, it’s a journey. Mind triggered into flight or fight response. If we can’t establish dominion over the world, then it will affect our health.This episode is sponsored by the CIO Scoreboard
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