Interview with Marcus Buckingham - Find Your Strongest Life

By Dana Bristol-Smith

Last week I was given the opportunity to interview Marcus Buckingham, best-selling author and management guru, about his newest book Find Your Strongest Life - What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently.

I was thrilled to ask how his findings and the Strong Life Practice can help women who have overcome adversity (isn't that all of us?). He has some very practical suggestions that ANYONE - man or woman, can use to really zero in on how to live a happy and successful life. Being a researcher, Marcus has tons of data to back up what he proposes and reports - in fact he received over 100,000 online responses to his workshop that he gave for Oprah's audience! And, that's where the idea for this book came from.

A very unexpected and exciting outcome of our discussion is that Marcus is very interested in meeting the graduates of the Speak for Success Women's Leadership Institute and hearing their stories. In fact, he's planning to visit us here in San Diego in November! Who knows what might be on the horizon for our Women's Leadership Institute!

Stay tuned....

Hi Marcus! Thanks for speaking with me. In our Women's Leadership Institute, we are working with women who have overcome adversity – domestic abuse, addiction, and homelessness. We provide coaching and training to help women rediscover their goals and dreams and start creating action plans to move their lives forward.

How would our women benefit from the Strong Life Practice?

Marcus: I think they would, and frankly, anyone would. Just to put some context to it, Dana, the focus of this book, Find Your Strongest Life, is that the trending data shows that regardless of what kind of life you are having, as a woman in America today, regardless of whether you are married or single, wealthy or not, women today are less happy than they were 40 years ago, and they are less happy than men, which for me was a surprise, because of all the advances in opportunity, power, and influence and all of the choices that women have today.

I decided to study women who have bucked that trend.

If you study women who have been able to find strength in life, which was the focus of my study, obviously they are very different from one another, but if you were to drill down and say what do they have in common? What can we learn from them? The first thing I found is that they follow Martha Washington’s advice, the first, first lady who said “the greater part of our happiness depends on our disposition rather than on our circumstances.”

So on some level, these women decided that no matter what life threw at them, they were going to try and find a way to determine meaning and purpose. On some level they were optimistic in that life would help them find a way forward. So I focused on strong women and the strong choices they made.

The second thing we see in these women is that they seem to find that the way to success and satisfaction is not to look at goals and dreams and grand things, but to look at moments – life throws a whole lot of moments at you, and some of them invigorate and strengthen you, and some of them don’t.

Your first challenge as a woman in life, or as a man, is to look for moments in your life, and say, are there any specific moments that invigorate me that I know for certain make me strong? And, can I start to build my life around those moments and go step by step? Then I can gradually tilt my life to have more of these strong moments that strengthen me.

One of the women I interviewed for the book was a pastor’s wife who found out that her husband was a serial rapist. To make a long story short, her whole life fell apart in front of her eyes. In order to rebuild her life, she started from one moment in her life that she knew was true and rebuilt out from there.

Dana: Wow, what a terrible story. What about the idea from Stephen Covey – starting with the end in mind? Really having a clear vision of what you want in your life, having something to walk towards, to strive for. Doesn’t something like that pull you forward in life?

Marcus: Yes, but I think you have to be terribly careful to know what you build the end out of, because intentions and goals can be misguiding. And you need to make sure that you are building your goals out of the right material.

Dana: So are you looking at these moments as the right material? These moments that have given us strength and happiness in our life.

Marcus: Yes, you start with right now. You don’t build castles in the sky. You start right now in my awful rotten life, if I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Even there, right now there are certain things in life, certain reactions I have, certain people who I know to be true. That is if I’m going to build a vision of the future that’s better then, I need to build it from what I know to be true today. Otherwise you might actually be building a life, or shooting for an end that is actually achieved but doesn’t make you happy at all.

Dana: Let me tap into something about meaning and purpose in life. When we interview women who have survived domestic violence, many of them want to use their experience to help other women. Our graduates say to others, I’ve turned my life around and you can too. They feel that their own horrible situation has served a purpose that now strengthens them and strengthens others. Is that what you are talking about?

Marcus: Yes, I believe they are showing other people a model of what life could look like. Sometimes change follows the focus of your attention. I talk a lot about that in the book. If you have people who are standing up and talking about what positive change can look like and focusing people’s attention on that, then the more you hear that as an individual who is stuck in the middle of a terrible situation, you can come to believe that that it is possible for you too.

One of the funny things in life is that you never really solve a problem on its own terms. You have to change the angle of attack to solve the problem. Take the Middle East for example; we know so much about the problem, but we really aren’t any closer to solving it. Take domestic abuse situations; you can dive into the problem, and the bigger it can get. I think with women, talking about what moving out of that problem looks like gives other women the chance to see that you can change the angle of attack, you can give other women the chance to see what moving forward looks like.

Dana: Did you find that working towards a higher purpose is one of the contributors to women having a happy life? That meaning and significance were important?

Marcus: Yea, whatever your purpose may be in life, it has to be a full expression of who you are. One of the things that these women who put their life on track, and got unstuck found, was that they had the answers within them. That if they listened closely enough to the voice inside of them, they had strengths, activities, people that strengthened them. And, if they truly had those, they could build for themselves a mission, a purpose, a goal and a future that was true for them. So the power comes from within.

These women, and I’m sure you found this that women who take positive action to get unstuck, are ones who on some level take themselves very seriously and don’t abdicate their responsibility of their happiness to anyone else.

Dana: Our women have learned so much about themselves through adversity and learned about the strength that they have. One of our graduates got on a Greyhound bus in Pensacola Florida with one of her four children and $17 and came all the way to San Diego to escape an abusive husband. She knew that her husband wouldn’t come this far to find her.

By taking this step and proving her own courage, she’s build an extraordinary life for herself and now has all four of her children living with her. She spent two years going from shelter to shelter to shelter until finally saving enough money to get her own apartment.

Her name is Lana and she is now in charge of our Graduate Speaker’s Bureau and speaks out in the community.

Marcus: Wow! I’d love to hear from her about what she did and what was going on in her mind and her heart when she did it.

Dana: I’d love to have you meet all of our graduates! They are extraordinary.

Marcus. I would too – We’ll set that up!

I’m reminded by that story of Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. He was interred in concentration camps in World War II. How do you find meaning? He was a psychology professor and he survived by trying to put lesson plans together. If he was going to try and teach his students about this experience, how would he talk about it? Somehow he managed to stay sane.

I don’t know if the person you described did something specific, or just used raw courage. It would be lovely to hear those stories.

One tool that you might want to use is free online. It is the Strong Life Test at www.stronglifetest.com. So many times women don’t believe that they have something special and unique to offer, they don’t believe that they are worth listening to, or their voice has led them down some bad alleys. This very simple test can help you identify your lead role. It’s not going to answer all questions but it can help you find where life can offer you strengths.

Yes, Dana, you are right, they look for higher purpose out of specific moments they know for certain. Even if you are in a terrible situation, start with those good, powerful, true moments so you can claim your power back. Build your life from those moments.

If we can help people know that they have the answers – if we can get women to trust their choices and make stronger choices, women, men and children will all benefit as a result. We will be doing a lot of good for a lot of people!

Dana: Thanks so much for your insights, Marcus, and for the work that you are doing in the world. I look forward to having you come and meet our graduates and seeing where this might lead!

Marcus: Thank you Dana – I look forward to it!

Got Remote? Don't Leave Home Without One

by Dana Bristol-Smith

Be prepared.

That’s the Boy Scout motto and it’s really good advice when it comes to giving presentations. Of course you’ve prepared your presentation. You know where you will deliver it, how many people will be there, and how long you have to speak. Perhaps you’ve even sent your PowerPoint ahead of time so that it could be loaded into the system and tested. And, of course you have a backup copy with you, just in case.

I’ve run into two situations lately that slipped right by my preparation process---I didn’t have a remote control, and both times, I had to make do with a less than ideal situation, and frankly, a little embarrassment.

A brand new client was coming to my office for a presentations coaching session. I told him to bring his laptop with presentation and I would supply the projector. He came to the office with his laptop as instructed. He assumed that I’d have a remote for him to use, but I didn’t. Since I left my laptop at home, my computer bag with the remote was at home with it.

What was our solution?

He gave his presentation and tapped his chest each time he had me advance the slide. The tricky thing was that many of his slides had lots of bullets, and lines that came in separately so it took a lot of clicking (and chest tapping on his part) to get through the presentation. I felt bad because I’m sure that he left my office with a purple bruise on his chest. He made the best of the situation and I learned a big lesson.

ALWAYS BRING A REMOTE and don’t assume that my client has one.

The next week I was giving a presentation in a client’s conference room. I was told that the presentation would be video conferenced and the system was built into the room. I sent my PowerPoint ahead of time so that it could be preloaded and tested. I didn’t even think to bring a remote since this was such a hightech set up.

Guess what? There was no remote.

My contact offered to advance the presentation slides as I delivered the presentation. So I’m standing up at the front of the room and I’ve got to focus not only on the people in the room, and the other site that I can see via the TV screen, and the camera that is recording, plus… I have to signal my contact to advance the slides… all the while staying on track, on time, and engaging! Phew! Somehow I did it – and it was okay. Fortunately, I knew my content so well that I didn’t get flustered. I just felt like I was an idiot for forgetting the remote!

Lesson learned again. ALWAYS BRING A REMOTE

I often tell people that I’ve learned my public speaking skills through pain and public humiliation, by making lots of mistakes in public and, the reason I started Speak for Success was to help people learn through a kinder and gentler process. Both ways are effective but if I had a choice, I would vote for the kinder and gentler process.

What about you?

Are you making all of your mistakes in public? Or, would you like to polish your skills in a safe and supportive atmosphere? If you’d like some support, I invite you to consider attending my next Powerful Presentations program here in San Diego. There will be no pain or humiliation, I promise! And, I promise to bring the remote!

If you present frequently, I suggest that you make a $25 investment for peace of mind. Buy a remote to carry with you. It’s a small price to pay for a smooth presentation delivery. You can get one at Amazon.com in our Speak for Success Store and get free shipping too.

Remember the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.

Insure your presentation success. Get a remote and don’t leave home without it.

Tacking My Fears Has Opened Doors

By Dana Bristol-Smith

I’ve learned that tackling the things that we fear in life gives us options and opens doors that we might not even have known exist.

Facing my fear of public speaking, learning from my mistakes, and developing programs, I’ve been able to build a successful business that helps others do the same. I didn’t plan this career and feel that I’ve been led to it to help others bring out their best and discover capabilities that they didn’t even know they had.

I feel like one of the luckiest people alive because I absolutely love what I do and feel that it is an honor to work with people in this capacity.

I'd love to know what fear you might tackle and, what doors would that open for you?

Handling Hecklers - Obama Does it Well

Bert Decker from his Blog - Create Your Communications Experience

Handling Hecklers - Obama does it well

Much has been written about President Obama's speaking style, particularly here and elsewhere, so I'm not going to comment on the specifics of last night's speech. Nor get into the opinion of many as to whether he is using the Bully Pulpit to excess. (He is.) But I do want to laud him for the way he handled the heckling of Rep. Joe Wilson.

There are some lessons to be learned here. I doubt if any of us will ever have the massive stage, audience and pressure that Obama had at a speech almost State Of The Union in it's size and impact - but how Obama handled the outburst is worth noting.

As you can see in the clip, not only is President Obama taken aback by the shout, "You lie!" from Wilson, so are Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. Actually everyone was set back a bit - as with most hecklers it isn't whether the actual content is anywhere near accurate, it's the shock of the disruption - particularly to the President on the floor of Congress in such a major speech.

At 1 minute and 23 seconds into the clip Wilson shouts, "You lie!" Then Obama pauses, finger upraised and looks pointedly at him for 4 seconds. Then he wisely does not argue, but takes it in stride with a calm ad lib and low key refutation, "That's not true." And then he continues on to recapture his momentum. Well done. And an immediate acceptance of Wilson's rapid apology later furthered President Obama's accomplishment at turning a lemon into lemonade.

How You Can Handle Heckler's

We can learn from this very public example and apply it to our own communicating situations. Here are three things you can do to help you handle hecklers and hostile audience encounters:

1. Don’t argue.

You might win the argument, but you would probably lose the audience. The hostile questioner is ‘part’ of the audience, so you don’t want to put him or her down – publicly. Obama did that well – he stopped, looked and listened – and then went on.

2. Use simple behaviors.

Use your voice, and increased volume or change in tone, and/or a pause, to get the attention back to your message. Use your eye communication to engage the heckler, and then take the attention away from the heckler by looking and talking elsewhere. (This is also a good behavioral technique in a hostile Q&A session – when you ask for the next question, have your eye contact looking away from the past hostile questioner.) Sometimes a simple hand gesture (or finger pointing) might be useful to direct attention away from the negative energy. And then, you just talk and move on.

3. Keep control.

At all costs, you can’t lose control for it is YOUR communication experience and you are responsible for it. Don’t let anyone else hijack it. 95% of the time you can handle most hecklers with the simple behaviors in #2, but if necessary, raise your voice, confront, or do what is necessary to keep control, even if you have to ask for help in removing the extremely disruptive.

Simple common sense techniques, but they can work wonders if you keep your cool, and keep control. Like the President did last night.