Out of the Comfort Zone

Send us a textThis is a real life, business transformation story from the person who led and is still leading the company. If you are thinking about how your business can be more hi tech regardless the current level of technology, this is the conversation for you. And if you are wondering how to get others on board, this is also the conversation for you.⬇️ Connect with me!► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wanda-wallace-publicspeaker-author-podcasthost/► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wandatwallace/► Main YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wandawallace/► X: https://x.com/AskWanda► Website: https://www.wandawallace.com/

Send us a textThe expectations and experiences of the youngest generation in the workforce (Gen Z) is, to put it simply, different. You may be frustrated or worse. However, to have an effective, productive, engaged workforce you must learn to lead them and lead them well. What does that mean you should do and can do? Fortunately, we have suggestions. Listen in for great examples and sound advice. By the way, it works for everyone else too.⬇️ Connect with me!► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wanda-wallace-publicspeaker-author-podcasthost/► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wandatwallace/► Main YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wandawallace/► X: https://x.com/AskWanda► Website: https://www.wandawallace.com/

Send us a textIn our comfort zones we do the same routines and engage in the same habits. To move out of the comfort zone, we have to change habits. One of those habits is trying to separate emotions from any situation. When the outcome matters, you can't take the emotion out. Further, there is information in those emotion – both yours and the other person's. In negotiating a solution, or in any disagreement about the path forward, there are seven tensions. Learning to recognize them and use them will lead to better outcomes. Listen in for what the seven are, why they matter and how you can use them.⬇️ Connect with me!► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wanda-wallace-publicspeaker-author-podcasthost/► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wandatwallace/► Main YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wandawallace/► X: https://x.com/AskWanda► Website: https://www.wandawallace.com/

Send us a textIf you want to improve your leadership, start by looking inside. Successful leadership is not about power or grand decisions; it's driven by the set of personal principles that guide the leader's actions and inspire others.  As coaches, we have known for decades that to up your leadership game, you need to first look at your principles and values. Listen in for wisdom and sound advice on what will make you a more successful leader.⬇️ Connect with me!► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wanda-wallace-publicspeaker-author-podcasthost/► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wandatwallace/► Main YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wandawallace/► X: https://x.com/AskWanda► Website: https://www.wandawallace.com/

If you are seeking a way to calm your mind and stop all the ruminating thoughts so that you can focus, solve problems more efficiently and have that sense of satisfaction that comes with being in a state of, then this episode is for you. What is flow? What are the ingredients for achieving it? How can we create more of it? How does flow help us improve our mental health and our productivity? Listen in for practical advice.

No doubt you want to make a positive impact on the world and no doubt you have issues or causes you would like to see solved. How can you use your money to create change without having huge amounts to give away? Listen in for surprisingly accessible ways for most anyone to invest in a cause or a company they care about.

What do spies learn in their trade that leaders can apply every day? Turns out that spies are not as the movies portray them and they have incredibly skills in connecting with people – even with people they don't necessarily like.  Intrigued? Listen in for fascinating stories and impactful insights.

Change and uncertainty – something everyone is trying to cope with and if you lead people probably something that is easier said than done. Despite all the many books on the subject, we are still missing a key ingredient – the human at the center of change. What does that mean for you as a manager, how can you work better with middle managers, what can you do that will make a difference in how your organization activates a change vision.

Understanding how our brains work provides valuable clues on how to be more persuasive, particularly when marketing a brand, conveying your message or pitching an idea. Listen in for an update on what we now know about how the brain functions along with great advice on tapping instinct and being more persuasive.

So many times, men and women have whispered to me that they are afraid of speaking in public. They know they need to get over the fear, but somehow the idea still paralyses them. As a leader, speaking in public is part of the job. There is hope! You can overcome your fear with some tools and some practice. You might come to enjoy it as well. Listen in for advice, to know you are not alone and to understand what sparks the fear in the first place.

Remote working and hybrid teams are a reality whether you are managing individuals who prefer not to be in the office or ones that are many time zones away. What does it take to lead these teams effectively? How do hybrid teams stay connected? What is different about managing remote or hybrid teams? Listen in for insights and practices.

You are responsible for managing your career. But, what does that mean you should be doing? Or maybe you have been doing a reasonable job but now you feel stuck. How do you get unstuck and what you can do to keep your career on track? Listen to this episode from veteran HR leaders.

Profile, brand and reputation matter for your visibility, what roles people consider you for, what opportunities come to you, how people prep to meet you. And they matter just as much internally as externally. You might be surprised how many internal leaders check LinkedIn before they meet with you. Organizations are starting to say to top talent that they need an external profile to be effective at the next level. How do you raise your profile on LinkedIn in the most effective way possible? Listen in for new, sound advice that normal people can execute without a huge amount of time.

If you want to make better decisions or if you want to have a set of diverse perspectives around you to guide thinking, then this discussion is vital. How do we frame and then re-frame our points of view to get better results? What keeps us from re-framing? Why is this a unique human skill when so much of what human's do can be done, eventually, by machines? Listen in for insight and tools.

Getting out of your comfort zone is ultimately about embracing uncertainty. Innovating, recognizing disruptions before they wreak havoc requires some comfort with uncertainty. Why is uncertainty so uncomfortable? Why do we work so hard to eliminate it if that's where growth lies? What would happen if we allowed more uncertainty into our work places or our lives? More importantly, how can you become more comfortable with uncertainty regardless of your level of intolerance for uncertainty? Listen in for solutions and actions as well as a lively conversation.

When it comes to achieving extra-ordinary results, we have a few myths that don't match reality. For one, we tend to focus on “the one” person who single handedly accomplished a goal. Or, two, we tend to focus on the larger team involved in delivering a goal. What if neither are correct? What if it's a small team or two or three that work closely together while others float in and out at different times. Looking at historical accomplishments, e.g., Wright Brothers, Gilbert and Sullivan, Apollo 13, we see exactly this pattern. Furthermore, they don't always like each other. Listen in for a fun discussion about big achievements from small teams along with implications for how you lead your team.

Your personal brand is your reputation – it is what people think about you. And I will argue it exists whether you shape it or not. From a master marketer and a CEO, what constitutes an authentic personal brand? How do you position that brand for your team and for senior leadership so that it is credible to both? How do you prepare to communicate with your senior most leaders? Listen in for lots of real-world examples and great advice on personal brand as well as managing your career.

Relationships are are greatest asset at work and outside of work. So why do we know so little about how to form good ones and maintain them? What do all the psychological experiments of the last few decades have to say? If you want to know how to build stronger connections with anyone, listen in for critical insights and advice.

We want our leaders to be ethical and to consider the “greater good” in making decisions, particularly big ones. How do you identify ethical leadership and how can you develop it in yourself and in your organization? Listen in a very important debate.

Coaching is everywhere. Everyone, at every level, seems to want a personal coach whether the subject is career, leading or life. While no doubt one-one coaching can be effective, there is a growing interest in a different coaching format: peer-to-peer or even one coach with several coachees. Does this model work? Why? And How? What does it say about how you lead and develop your team? Can these models help us do a better job of building a hybrid team? Listen in for the debate and some solutions.

Based on latest research, a lot of people are feeling lonely, unmotivated and lacking a sense of joy. No, it's not depression or burn-out. It's languishing. There are 5 vitamins for flipping the switch back to flourishing. Listen in to hear what languishing is, why it matters to you and to the success of your team along with what you can do about it.

Emotional intelligence is an essential ingredient for great leadership and there is nothing new in that statement. What is new is recent study showing a steady global decline in emotional intelligence – across generations, cultures and industries. If you are leading people, this has big implications for how you manage people, particularly younger talent. And, it has big implications for each of us in being our best selves for all the people that matter in our lives. Listen in to hear the data and a conversation about the implications along with potential actions you can take.

Leaders faced with decisions often ask if they made the “right” call. Winning athletes and coaches make a constant series of calls. What can we learn from studying how they make the “right calls'? What does it tell us about how to be a better leader? Tune in for fun stories and brilliant insight.

I have been saying for a few years that leaders expect themselves to perform like Olympic athletes but do none of the preparation and practices that make today's athletes competitive. In this episode, don't take my word for it. Listen in to hear the story of a medal winning Olympic athelete. Learn what she did and how the same practices can apply to you.

Science has given us a window into what the best performers do that sustains and propels their performance. What distinguishes the best from the rest? What practices do you need to adopt for yourself and your team? Listen in to hear the latest advice on the skills you need.

This is a wide-ranging conversation with an entrepreneur. We talk about her big career moves, maintaining confidence, staying centered, taking risks and of course the impact of Generative AI. Listen in for a fascinating exploration of one leader's career and how she thinks about the future.

Your career matters to you and therefore you are the only one who really cares, who can make the choices that will make a difference, who can define what you should do and when. Listen in for advice about really winning, making mistakes and how to know when it's time to leave.

Being persuasive, convincing others is tough especially when the people you want to convince are over-scheduled, distracted and have a thousand things going on at any moment. Hostage negotiations and crisis communications have a many good insights for navigating the day-day challenges of persuasion. Intrigued? Listen in to understand 4 skills you can add to your repetoire that will be game changers.

Growth mindset, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks, perseverance, willpower are all adages we hear every day about how to succeed. What if we are thinking about these in the wrong way? How can you think about risk? How do you know if you should preserve at something or change course? How do you keep from burning out? Listen in for how one leader navigates his challenges and what he has learned about success from establishing over 100 companies.

There are many disruptors on the minds of business leaders today. A.I. and automation may be at the top of the list. However, A.I and automation enable something bigger such as a drastic change in when goods are made available to customers making it possible for customers to have anything they want, anytime they want it and anywhere they want it. This is the proximity revolution. What does it mean to you and your business? Listen in insights and steps you can take.

Having great impact is a worthy goal. In fact, I think it's a better goal than striving to reach a particular title. And it forces you to ask some of the most important questions a leader needs to address like: Where can I add the greatest value and where do I put my efforts to have the greatest impact. What do impact players do that sets them apart? Listen in to find out and stay with us to learn why this is creating a lot of controversy in a “quiet quitting” world? What has happened to our relationship with work?

Conflict is inevitable if you are working on complex challenges. Learning to manage conflict well will be a game changer for success as a leader and in your career. What do you say in the moment? How can you make your point without offending the other party or sounding defensive? Listen in for phrases that help you say no, manage the matrix, deal with complainers, increase accountability and much more.

In almost every aspect of business, great teams outperform individual efforts. Yet creating a ‘dream' team isn't as easy as it sounds. What does it take to create a winning team and how can you turn your team into a winning team?

Have you ever wondered about the essential skills for being a leader that inspires people and that people want to follow? What really sets great leaders apart from the rest? Wondering what you need to develop to increase your leadership? If you answered yes to any of these, then check out answers in this episode.

This episode addresses one question: How do you come to understand who you are and what matters to you so that you can live the life you want to live and feel satisfied with your life? To answer that key question, we dive into how to define what matters, how to understand your core values, how to understand who you are and who you are not and how to define success for you. Listen in for exercises that will help you answer those questions for yourself.

Most of us avoid getting things done either from fear or self-doubt or lack of time. Regardless what you need to get done or your temperament on planning, this episode will give you fabulous tips for how to get things done and get over the inner critic.

Stress comes from the big events at work and outside of work as well as in all the small micro moments. Managing stress levels may well be the most important thing for leaders to do to keep from over-reacting, stressing their teams and amplifying negative energy. Breathing is the best way to manage your stress in the moment. But there is more to breathing than just taking in a gulp of air and letting it out. Science is showing us the power of specific breath exercises. Listen in to hear about the latest and the impact it could have on you.

If you are leading a team, you probably spend a lot of your time solving problems with or for the team. And, perhaps you spend more time than you like persuading others, especially senior most leaders, that those solutions are good or that change is necessary. Is there a better way to solve problems – one that encourages innovation and that fosters transformation? That is the focus on this episode.

Taking time to explore is one of the things that we need to do more of but that is out of the comfort zone for those that are task focused and time starved. Yet exploring is a precursor to being strategic, to spotting opportunities, to growing and even to being innovative – whether that's big innovation like a new service or small innovation like a streamlining process. Listen in for why you should explore, what you might gain if you tried and how to do it.

This is part of the motivation series. In this episode, we turn to science to ask what research tells us about motivating ourselves and others.

One of the most common questions I get is about how to motivate a team, and yourself as a leader. In this multi-part series, we address that question with the best in research and in practice. In this episode, we are asking what really motivates and drives people and how is that related to personality. Then we will talk about the practical implications in the workplace. Listen in to hear some of the best advice on how to keep yourself and your team motived.

This is part of a series on motivation where we explore what you can do to motivate your team and yourself. The focus in this episode is incentives. What does the research say about incentives as an means of motivating and driving change? What does experience say about how to use incentives to create change? What works and what doesn't work? Listen in for significant insights.

This is part of a series on motivation where we explore what you can do to motivate your team and yourself. The focus in this episode is incentives. What does the research say about incentives as an means of motivating and driving change? What does experience say about how to use incentives to create change? What works and what doesn't work? Listen in for significant insights.

This is another installment in the series on motivation, a key concern for many leaders. This episode focuses on the lessons of experience from a leader who has lead in many countries across many groups. Listen in to hear an on the ground perspective of what it takes to keep your team and your organization motivated.

This is another installment in the series on motivation, a key concern for many leaders. This episode focuses on the lessons of experience from a leader who has lead in many countries across many groups. Listen in to hear an on the ground perspective of what it takes to keep your team and your organization motivated.

Communication is the means for inspiring, motivating, persuading, transforming, sparking innovation, developing and nuturing a talented team. This episode focuses on transformation and how to use communication to get the outcomes and engagement you are seeking. Listen in for great advance on leveling up your communication.

Communication is the means for inspiring, motivating, persuading, transforming, sparking innovation, developing and nuturing a talented team. This episode focuses on transformation and how to use communication to get the outcomes and engagement you are seeking. Listen in for great advance on leveling up your communication.

Which leaders do we gravitate to in time of stability versus in time of crisis? Are leaders changed by events or not? What does that say about how you should think about your leadership and situation in which you are leading? Listen in for a fascinating, extremely relevant perspective from history and answer the question of whether events make the leader or vice versa.

Which leaders do we gravitate to in time of stability versus in time of crisis? Are leaders changed by events or not? What does that say about how you should think about your leadership and situation in which you are leading? Listen in for a fascinating, extremely relevant perspective from history and answer the question of whether events make the leader or vice versa.

Do you feel that you are stuck in mire and can't get things done? Is your organization wasting a lot of time with inefficiency? Are seemingly simple actions overly complicated? Tune in to understand the causes of friction and what to do about them.

Do you feel that you are stuck in mire and can't get things done? Is your organization wasting a lot of time with inefficiency? Are seemingly simple actions overly complicated? Tune in to understand the causes of friction and what to do about them.