Mindset Development Tips

I've delivered 500+ keynotes. Here's a pro-tip for speaking/presenting. Your pre-performance ritual isn't optional. It's essential. The difference between good and transformational always comes down to those final 15 minutes. HERE'S MY NON-NEGOTIABLE RITUAL: T-minus 30 minutes: Tech check complete. No more logistics. T-minus 15 minutes: Complete isolation begins. This is when I start programming my nervous system for peak state. T-minus 10 minutes: Active preparation. I pace backstage, repeating my opening lines until they're cellular: "Change itself has changed..." "When we think about transformation..." "Let me tell you about the moment..." T-minus 5 minutes: Full state activation. No conversations. No distractions. Just presence. Why this matters: Your opening determines everything. If those first 30 seconds land perfectly, you're in flow for the entire presentation. If they don't, you spend 10 minutes trying to find your rhythm. THE SCIENCE: Your prefrontal cortex can hold 7±2 pieces of information. Your opening sequence needs all of that bandwidth. A "quick chat" deletes 3-4 of those slots. Now you're on stage trying to REMEMBER your opening instead of BEING it. FOR SPEAKERS/PRESENTERS: Protect your ritual. Write it into your contract: "15-minute isolation period before stage time required for optimal performance." This isn't being difficult. It's being professional. FOR THOSE HIRING SPEAKERS: Want maximum impact? Give us space to create it. We're not being antisocial. We're preparing to transform your audience. Think of us like athletes before a game or surgeons before surgery. The ritual isn't preference, it's preparation. THE FRAMEWORK: 1. Decide your optimal activation time (10-30 minutes) 2. Communicate boundaries clearly and early 3. Design your ritual for YOUR nervous system 4. Practice until it's automatic 5. Never apologize for protecting your performance Your boundaries aren't limitations. They're the architecture of excellence. What pre-performance ritual would unlock your next level?

Don’t let them kill your vibe ☀️ It's easy to become disheartened and cynical when encountering negativity, betrayal, or cruelty from others. However, allowing bad experiences to harden your heart can lead to bitterness and a loss of compassion. Maintaining your kindness, despite adversity, is essential for your well-being and the positive impact you can have on the world. Why It Matters: Preserve Your Integrity: Staying true to your values and principles, regardless of others' actions, ensures you maintain your integrity and self-respect. Your actions define who you are, not the behavior of others. Set an Example: By consistently being good, you become a role model. Your behavior can inspire others to act with kindness and integrity, creating a ripple effect of positivity. Personal Fulfillment: Acts of kindness and maintaining a positive outlook contribute to personal fulfillment and happiness. They reinforce your sense of purpose and connection to others. Resilience: Choosing goodness builds resilience. It strengthens your ability to cope with negativity and adversity without losing your core values. How to stay kind, in an unkind environment: Practice Empathy: Understand that negative behaviors often stem from others' pain or insecurity. Responding with empathy rather than anger can diffuse conflict and promote understanding. Set Boundaries: Protect yourself from harmful individuals by setting clear boundaries. This allows you to remain good without being taken advantage of. Focus on Positivity: Surround yourself with positive influences. Engage with people and activities that uplift and support your well-being. Reflect and Grow: Use negative experiences as opportunities for personal growth. Reflect on what you can learn and how you can strengthen your character. Engage in Acts of Kindness: Regularly perform acts of kindness, no matter how small. Helping others can reinforce your commitment to goodness and positively impact your community. Seek Support: When dealing with negativity, seek support from friends, family, or professional counselors. They can offer perspective and help you stay grounded in your values. Being kind, even in the face of negativity, you contribute to a more compassionate world. Your actions can inspire others and create a legacy of positivity and resilience

Productivity looks impressive on a dashboard. Responsibility builds something deeper. Over time, I have learnt that hitting targets is not the same as taking ownership. You can have a team that delivers every metric and still misses the mark. Because real growth does not come from doing more. It comes from doing what matters and owning it completely. Responsibility shows up in the quiet moments. When someone stays late to fix a mistake no one else saw. When a client issue is resolved without it ever becoming an escalation. When team members hold themselves accountable without being asked. Productivity asks, “Did we finish the work?” Responsibility asks, “Did we care enough to do it right?” One builds short-term wins. The other builds long-term culture. So yes, I value productivity. But what I build for is responsibility. That is what sustains everything else. #Productivity #Strategy #Culture #Leadership

🗣️“You must be more assertive.” Last year, those five words burned into Amy’s memory. She’d walked out of her 2023 review at XYZ Global determined to “step up.” Speak more in meetings. Push harder on decisions. Stop softening her tone so she wouldn’t intimidate anyone. She did exactly that. Fast forward 12 months. Same conference room. Same 2 VPs across the table. 🔇“You’ve become too intense, need to work on softening your approach.” 😑 Amy stared at them, speechless. Wasn’t that what you asked for last year? Which version of me do you actually want? She thought about the past year: 🤔 The time she challenged a flawed budget forecast in front of the CFO, saving the company $3 million, but earning whispers that she was “abrasive.” 🤔 The time she stepped in to rescue a failing project, praised for her “grit” publicly, yet privately told she “dominated the room.” 🤔 The time she finally got invited to an executive offsite, only to overhear a VP say, “She’s great, but can be… a lot.” This is the tightrope trap senior women walk daily: • Be assertive, but not too assertive. • Be collaborative, but don’t fade into the background. • Be visible, but not “hungry.”    The same behavior praised in men (decisive, strong leader) gets women penalized as abrasive or too much. Until you set the narrative yourself, you’re trapped performing for a moving target. If you’re exhausted from balancing on a wire men don’t even see, here’s how to step off it and still rise. 1. Audit the pattern, not just the feedback • Track every piece of feedback, especially contradiction. Patterns reveal bias. If the goal keeps moving, it's not you! • Phrase to use in review: “Last year I was encouraged to increase my presence; this year I’m told to soften it. Can we clarify what success really looks like?”    2. Control the frame before the room does • Pre‑set the narrative in 1:1s and emails leading up to reviews. I.e., “This year I focused on driving results while bringing the team with me, you’ll see that reflected in project X and Y.” • This primes leadership to view your assertiveness as an intentional strategy, not a personality flaw.    3. Build echo chambers, not just results • Secure 2–3 allies who reinforce your strengths in rooms you’re not in. • Promotions happen in the absence, you need people echoing your narrative, not someone else’s. • Phrase to brief an ally: “If my leadership style comes up in review, can you speak to how I challenge decisions but still align the team?”    Women aren’t just asked to deliver results. They’re asked to perform, decode, and reframe, all while walking a wire men don’t even see. If you’re exhausted from balancing between “too soft” and “too aggressive,” stop walking the wire and start controlling the narrative. Join the waitlist of our next cohort of ⭐ From Hidden Talent to Visible Leaders ⭐ https://lnkd.in/gx7CpGGR 👊 Because leadership shouldn’t feel like an impossible balancing act.

I was shadowing a coaching client in her leadership meeting when I watched this brilliant woman apologize six times in 30 minutes. 1. “Sorry, this might be off-topic, but..." 2. “I'm could be wrong, but what if we..." 3. “Sorry again, I know we're running short on time..." 4. “I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but..." 5. “This is just my opinion, but..." 6. “Sorry if I'm being too pushy..." Her ideas? They were game-changing. Every single one. Here's what I've learned after decades of coaching women leaders: Women are masterful at reading the room and keeping everyone comfortable. It's a superpower. But when we consistently prioritize others' comfort over our own voice, we rob ourselves, and our teams, of our full contribution. The alternative isn't to become aggressive or dismissive. It's to practice “gracious assertion": • Replace "Sorry to interrupt" with "I'd like to add to that" • Replace "This might be stupid, but..." with "Here's another perspective" • Replace "I hope this makes sense" with "Let me know what questions you have" • Replace "I don't want to step on toes" with "I have a different approach" • Replace "This is just my opinion" with "Based on my experience" • Replace "Sorry if I'm being pushy" with "I feel strongly about this because" But how do you know if you're hitting the right note? Ask yourself these three questions: • Am I stating my needs clearly while respecting others' perspectives? (Assertive) • Am I dismissing others' input or bulldozing through objections? (Aggressive) • Am I hinting at what I want instead of directly asking for it? (Passive-aggressive) You can be considerate AND confident. You can make space for others AND take up space yourself. Your comfort matters too. Your voice matters too. Your ideas matter too. And most importantly, YOU matter. @she.shines.inc #Womenleaders #Confidence #selfadvocacy

An email from Coach Sommer I revisit often: Hi Tim, Patience. Far too soon to expect strength improvements. Strength improvements [for a movement like this] take a minimum of 6 weeks. Any perceived improvements prior to that are simply the result of improved synaptic facilitation. In plain English, the central nervous system simply became more efficient at that particular movement with practice. This is, however, not to be confused with actual strength gains. Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence was easy, everyone would do it. In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals. Unreasonable expectations timewise, resulting in unnecessary frustration, due to a perceived feeling of failure. Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process. The secret is to show up, do the work, and go home. A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise. And accept that quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion. No drama. No beating yourself up over small bumps in the road. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process. This is especially important because you are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all too brief moments of triumph at the end. Certainly celebrate the moments of triumph when they occur. More importantly, learn from defeats when they happen. In fact, if you are not encountering defeat on a fairly regular basis, you are not trying hard enough. And absolutely refuse to accept less than your best. Throw out a timeline. It will take what it takes. If the commitment is to a long-term goal and not to a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to. Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than having to make small decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way. This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal. The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.

Ever notice how some people stay mentally sharp, even as they age?   What these sharper individuals demonstrate is increased cognitive reserve.   Cognitive reserve refers to the brain's ability to improvise and find alternate ways of getting a task done. It is closely related to the resilience of the brain and pertains to its capacity to sustain damage (due to aging or other factors) without displaying evident functional impairments in cognitive functioning.   This mental resilience can make a world of difference as we age. But how can we actively build and maintain this cognitive reserve?   Contrary to popular belief, brain training games or so-called ‘cognitive training’ programs aren’t the solution   In 2008, Lumos Labs released their cognitive training program ‘Lumosity’ which they claimed could prevent brain aging and the onset of age-related dementia. One issue? They had no evidence to support their claims and were fined $2 million by the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving consumers. Not cool, Lumos!   Many have turned to brain training programs like Lumosity, hoping to preserve their cognitive abilities. However, research has shown that brain training games make you better on those specific games but they don’t help improve memory, attention, perception, or planning more generally.   So, what does work? Research suggests that a variety of engaging, everyday activities can help boost and maintain cognitive reserve. Here are some proven strategies:   👉 Lifelong Learning: Engage in educational activities, such as learning a language, taking up bridge or playing an instrument.   👉 Regular Exercise: Engage in physical activities like walking, gardening, yoga, or any other exercise to promote blood flow to the brain. 👉 Socialise: Engage in regular social activities to stimulate your mind and maintain emotional health.   👉 Motor Skills Development: Learn activities that require fine motor skills, such as painting, plumbing or sewing.   👉 Nutrition: Adopt a diet rich in fruits & vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats.   👉 Sleep Well: Ensure adequate and quality sleep, crucial for cognitive functions and memory consolidation.   Have you tried any of these activities to boost your cognitive reserve? What’s your favourite way to keep your brain active? 

Confession: I'm a nervous public speaker… (yet I’ll make $1M+ from keynotes this year). Here are 9 strategies that turned my deepest fear into a powerful strength: PHASE 1: PREP WORK Strategy 1: Study the Best. We have the world's best speakers at our fingertips. Use them. Find 3-5 speakers you admire. Watch their talks on YouTube at 0.75x speed. Take notes on their structure and pacing, voice modulation, movement and gestures, audience engagement. Strategy 2: Create Clear Structure. Great speakers don't deliver speeches, they tell stories. Map your journey explicitly: opening hook, 3 key points, memorable close. Tell the audience where you're taking them. Strategy 3: Build Your "Lego Blocks." Don't memorize your entire speech. That's a trap. Instead, perfect these moments: your opening 30 seconds, key transitions, punchlines and closers. Practice in segments, not sequences. When things go sideways (they will), you'll adapt instead of freeze. Weird trick: Practice once while walking or jogging. It simulates the heart rate spike you'll feel on stage. PHASE 2: PRE-STAGE Strategy 4: Address the Spotlight. The Spotlight Effect: We think everyone's watching our every move. They're not. Use the "So What?" approach: Name your worst fear, ask "So what if it happens?", realize it's never that bad. You'll stumble? So what. Life goes on. Your family still loves you. Strategy 5: Get Into Character. Create your speaker persona. Ask yourself: What traits do they have? How do they move? What's their energy? Flip the switch. Become that character. It's not fake, it's your best self. Strategy 6: Eliminate Stress. The "Physiological Sigh" kills anxiety fast: Double-inhale through your nose, long exhale through your mouth, repeat 2-3 times. Science-backed. Immediate impact. PHASE 3: DELIVERY Strategy 7: Cut the Tension. Last week, they asked what song I wanted to enter to. I said "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys. They thought I was joking. I wasn't. "It's my 1-year-old's favorite song. Figured he'd be more excited to watch if Dad entered to his jam." Instant laughter. Tension gone. Audience on my side. Find your tension breaker. Use it early. Strategy 8: Play the Lava Game. Your pockets and torso are lava. Don't touch them. This forces you to gesture broadly, open your body, project confidence. Big gestures early build momentum. Strategy 9: Move Purposefully. Don't pace like you're nervous. Move like you own the room. Slow. Deliberate. Purposeful. Use movement to create dramatic pauses. Let your words land. Start with one speech, one strategy: Pick your next presentation—could be a team meeting, a toast, whatever. Choose ONE strategy from this list. Master it. Then add another. Public speaking is a muscle. These strategies are your workout plan. The more you practice, the stronger you get. Remember: Everyone gets nervous. The difference is having a system. Now you have one. Use it. Practice it. Watch yourself transform.

Most people go their *entire* life without reflecting. And before they know it, years have gone by and it's too late to change. The most powerful reflection you can do to avoid this fate: The Monthly Review. Grab a pen, crack open a notebook, and answer these 5 questions: The goal of the monthly review: Block 60 minutes to slowly process the month. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day & lose sight of the bigger picture. And after trying 1000+ reflection questions, I chose each question for a specific reason. Let's start with the first: 1. What were my biggest wins & milestones? These are things that you will look back on with pride & fond memories at the end of the year. • Health wins • Business wins • New relationships • Goals accomplished • Fun memories & events Recapping wins & milestones kicks the review off on a positive note. So often, our focus is on the negative. But this questions helps us celebrate all the things going well! And it also creates a "ledger" of wins from the year. From there, you ask a more important question: --- 2. What were my biggest realizations? I used to call this my "biggest losses." But I reframed this—because something is either a win, or it teaches you about the world. And by constantly collecting these realizations, you are always learning. Most of my realizations are about my: • Health • Beliefs • Business • Lack of skills • Relationships By constantly iterating and distilling these lessons, you will level up month after month after month. From here, you go from looking backward to looking at the present: --- 3. What areas am I most satisfied? Least satisfied? Split the page in 2 columns and brain dump bullet points of everything that comes to mind. The goal here is to identify in the present moment what's working and what's not working. From there, you ask another question: --- 4. Based on these areas, what am I going to do more of? Less of? This is the 80/20 rule in action. 20% of your: • Habits • Beliefs • Friends • Actions Are leading to 80% of both your positive *and* negative results. Now you should have 2 lists: • Things to *double down* on that are bringing you the positive results • Things to *stop doing entirely* that are bringing you the negative results Put those lists somewhere you can see them every morning (for me, that's on my bathroom mirror). Now, it's time to think about the future: --- 5. What am I thinking about for the month ahead? This is a quick list of things you're: • Excited about • Thinking about • Uncertain about This turns into a letter to your future self you can read at the end of the month. --- And just like that, the review is complete! The beauty of this process is you can constantly capture these things throughout the month. • Wins & milestones • Realizations & decisions • Things going well & things to improve Then, at the end of the year, you collect these monthly reviews and distill the entire year.

If there’s a single technique I could recommend to supercharge your impact as a PM, it’s continuous discovery. And the "bible" is Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres, which has over 1,600 reviews on Amazon, with a 4.6 rating. I've had it on my desk for years. Here are my 10 favorite takeaways: 1. Begin with the end in mind. "Rather than obsessing about features (outputs), we are shifting our focus to the impact those features have on both our customers and our business (outcomes)." 2. The first step is the PM, designer, and software engineer engaging in weekly chats with customers. "At a minimum, weekly touchpoints with customers by the team building the product where they conduct small research activities in pursuit of a desired outcome." 3. It's not enough to ask customers what they need, you need to dig into what they have done. "As the interviewer, you will have to work to excavate the story." 4. The trios should iterate on Opportunity Solution Trees to organize these insights and the customer value they deliver every sprint. "A continuous mindset requires that we deliver value every sprint... by addressing unmet needs, resolving pain points, and satisfying desires." 5. The team should be aiming for 12+ discovery iterations every week. This means A/B testing less and assumption testing more. "The best product teams complete a dozen or more discovery iterations every week. This pace is possible only when we step away from the concept of testing ideas and instead focus on testing... assumptions." 6. The team should use story maps to identify and generate assumptions to test. "Throughout your story map, every time you assume that an end user will do something, you are making assumptions." 7. Then, the team should then prioritize the assumptions they need to test based on importance and quality of evidence. "Assumption mapping is a great way to quickly identify your leap of faith assumptions - the assumptions that carry the most risk and thus need to be tested." 8. As you measure impact of these assumption tests, you should measure input (the assumption) & output (the outcome) metrics. "For our assumption tests, we were measuring... leading indicators to our desired outcome. Over time, we also want to move closer measure our outcome itself." 9. When sharing the results of these assumption tests with stakeholders, show your work. "When we anchor the conversation in the solution space, we encourage our stakeholders to share their own preferences. However, these preferences aren't always grounded in good discovery. After all, it's our job to do discovery, not our stakeholders'." 10. Even if your boss isn't asking you to do discovery, do this as part of your working backwards, first principled process to supercharge your impact. "Many product teams aren't allowed to do discovery... You can still work on developing continuous discovery habits yourself. When you are asked to deliver a specific solution, work backward."