We are very excited to see our sister company covered in Inc Magazine.
Written by Minda Zetlin, published in Inc Magazine.
Sometimes, success comes not from what you learn to do but
what you learn to stop doing.
That bit of wisdom comes from Sandja Brügmann, serial entrepreneur
and founder of the Passion Institute, a recently launched online educational
program and consultancy for executives and entrepreneurs. "Once we have
developed understanding of how we interfere with our visions and goals, then
comes the challenging process of unlearning and changing specific
behaviors," she explains.
Unlearning is hard work. "It requires one to move out
of automatic behaviors and into conscious understanding, where we take control
of our own actions and lives," Brügmann says. "It requires
confronting uncomfortable feelings and an attentive vision for a different
business life." In fact, she says, it takes many of the same skills that
entrepreneurs need to succeed in their businesses. "It's a real act of
self-love at a deep level," she says. It's also what you need to do to
become a transformational leader.
What are some of the behaviors we all need to unlearn to
become effective leaders? Here are the ones Brügmann says she encounters most
often.
1. Pleasing
The need to please others comes from fear of not being good
enough and fear of being rejected, Brügmann explains. "We engage in
pleasing behavior in order to feel that we are OK or loved, but ultimately to
make ourselves feel safe," she says.
This is a behavior even experienced executives often need to
unlearn, she adds. It's a matter of striking the balance between giving too
much and giving too little. "It is a learning process to find the middle
ground, where giving comes from a centered and whole place--the only place where
it can truly be of value to yourself and others," she says. We need to
start by "filling ourselves up," building both self-confidence and
self-care skills.
"It requires a deep understanding that we are good
enough and worthy of love and belonging," Brügmann says. "From there,
we are able to truly become caring, giving, and serving leaders, and make a
positive impact in our companies and the world at large."
2. Being fuzzy about boundaries
"Most people need to learn to create better, healthier
boundaries," Brügmann says. Many of her students need to unlearn the
belief that saying no is an unkind thing to do. "In truth, learning to say
a clean and kind no is a key foundational skill to successful leadership,"
she says. "For many of our entrepreneurs, it's a big aha! moment when they
learn that saying no is in fact saying yes to yourself--taking your own
business dreams and visions seriously."
Loose, fuzzy boundaries create dysfunctional organizations,
she adds. "Learning to create healthy boundaries and communicating them
with empathy and kindness creates clarity, safety, security, and order,"
she says. "A good leader sets a clear framework for everyone in order to
set his or her entire team up for success."
3. Not speaking your mind
"Holding back from saying your truth not only creates
festering and negative emotions inside the withholder, but also deteriorates
relationships and weakens the health of your organization over time,"
Brügmann says. This is why unlearning this behavior, and understanding that it
benefits no one, is crucial.
It's not necessarily easy, she adds. "It takes courage
and the willingness to learn new assertive communication skills, as well as
relational management skills," she says. "Leaders who do learn these
things are exceptionally successful at driving their organizations
forward."
4. Avoiding failure
This is the surest way to kill success, Brügmann says.
"Many people have a desire for success and fulfilling their dreams but an
unwillingness to fail--or rather a desire to avoid experiencing the painful
feelings that can accompany perceived failure," she says.
Getting over this resistance to failure means moving away
from the notion that you are a bad person if you aren't able to create the
successful company you envisioned. "Instead, it's better to think of
failure as the procrastinating behavior that fear holds us in when we never
take the chance to live our dreams," Brügmann says. "Real failure is
not taking our inner yearnings seriously enough to try creating them for
ourselves."
5. Letting fear hold you back
"Fear is a natural human emotion, and we all experience
it," Brügmann says. The difference between people who take control of
their lives and those who don't is that the former have learned to cope with
and take control of certain fears--which takes a lot of inner work. "It
requires self-awareness, willpower, perseverance, resiliency, and a large dose
of courage," she adds. "Entrepreneurial pursuits are not for the
faint of heart."
6. Negative thinking
"When something bad happens and we attribute negative
meaning to it about ourselves, we may be heading for a downward spiral,"
Brügmann warns. "That's something we most definitely want to
unlearn."
The solution is to take control of our own thought patterns,
she says. For example, no one likes to hear no from a potential client or
investor. However, if it does happen, it doesn't mean that your project is bad
or that your idea isn't a good one.
"It probably has nothing to do with you as a
person," Brügmann says. "Don't overanalyze it. Don't make it mean
anything positive or negative about you." No one client or potential
investor is the single key to happiness forever, she adds--there's always someone
else to pitch. "Think about what your next move will be to achieve your
goal," she says.
7. Getting really, really busy
"Unfortunately, it's a common modern-day myth that
being busy or having a packed schedule is equivalent to being a person of
importance," Brügmann says. "Gaining self-value and worth solely on
the basis of being busy is a dangerous and self-sabotaging behavior that leads
to, if anything, a deeper disconnect from your passion, purpose, and true
fulfillment."
Too often, she adds, people start unlearning this behavior
only after a major stressor, or perhaps after someone they love leaves them.
"Learning to slow way down can be very difficult for some people,
especially those who live in overdrive," she says. "Focusing on
stillness, silence, and solitude, however, can be the doorway toward a deeper
connection with self. It's also called getting off the hamster wheel."
8. Looking for your power outside yourself
"At the center of the storm is calm. Find your steady
and centered place within yourself, and stay here as much as possible,"
Brügmann advises. That calm place will give you self-confidence and allow you
to stay committed to your long-term goals in spite of the short-term ups and
downs of business and life.
"If your well-being, peace, and happiness depend on
external factors, your level of stress will be too high to successfully stay on
the entrepreneurial path for very long," she predicts. Instead, she recommends
trying to stay somewhat detached from external events. "You'll be able to
make better decisions for a larger good," she says, "instead of just
relieving short-term stress or fear."
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