Welcome to the Deploy Yourself Newsletter, where I share what impactful leadership looks like to show your own power. I also share the most insightful lessons and stories I encountered in the last two weeks. You can also read this issue online.
Hey,
Do you talk yourself out of your own dreams?
You can have and go for any dream if you don’t talk yourself out of it first.
If you have a dream, you want to be deeply grounded in that. You want to be sure that it is more than a fantasy or wish. For many people – Visualising their dream future and speaking it out loud works best to get their bodies & brains familiar with it.
Once you are sure that this is a dream that fills you up with passion, and you are willing to commit (not make it trivial) to the journey, you are in the game. You know that it matters to you deeply – and is not just superficially.
The next thing is to make sure you do not talk yourself out of the dream. It is so easy to talk yourself out of your dreams by thinking or saying, “I will never achieve that.”, “They will never pay me that.”, “He will never say YES to that.”, or “I do not have what it takes.” This applies to any dream or future vision you might have.
I am coaching an ex-SVP of Product from a tech unicorn who is currently a startup entrepreneur. He wanted to give back to the product manager community. However, he was talking himself out of his dream by thinking, “I have no time.” or “Why will they listen to me?”, or “I do not know public speaking” or “I am a nobody compared to this or that person”.
We worked on that unless he started showing up at conferences and networking events in a way that he was giving back to the community just by his presence, listening and speaking. Very soon organisers of conferences and other influential people started to notice and invite him to speak or present at their events. All of this happened because of a lot of preparation and practice on “not talking yourself out of your own dreams”.
Today, he is contributing and giving back to the product manager community, leaving him with a deep sense of satisfaction and meaning in his life. And every time I speak to him (he is still a client), I am amazed by how “light” he is and he often can’t stop smiling and blushing at the life he is living now – even though he is tackling much bigger challenges than ever before.
Ready to make 2023 your best year ever? What would need to happen for you to call 2023 your best year?
If you are ready to make your wildest dreams real, and willing to accept support and help in the process (as nobody does it alone), then, I want to be YOUR coach.
Reply back to find out my requirements from those I support.
Fascinating Articles & Stories
One
Don’t Focus on Your Job at the Expense of Your Career
In her book, Dorie Clark writes about how to simultaneously navigate two realities: meeting the short-term needs of the moment (i.e., doing your job to pay the bills) while positioning yourself for long-term success. Here are four principles:
- Analyze the strategic value of your activities.
- Enlist allies.
- Manage your brand.
- Be willing to experiment with “120% time.”
Read in detail in this article from Harvard Business Review
Two
How to Increase Your Conversational Intelligence
- Great conversation leads to great relationships, which leads to great culture.
- Level I conversations are about resistance
- Level II conversations are about “wait and see“
- Level III conversations are about co-creation
- When we are threatened by others, cortisol can linger for 26 hours.
- Children have the same capacity for conversational intelligence that adults do, but only if we have the courage to nurture their growth.
From a podcast with Judith Glaser on the Coaching with Leaders Podcast
Three
New Inspiring Episodes on the Choosing Leadership Podcast
Below are the latest episodes where I have interviewed these amazing leaders. Listen to their story to know the choices they have made to be where they are now.
In the interview, Raymond shares about his journey of being 100k dollars in debt before becoming a teacher, coach, and successful businessman. He also shares that he only does what he loves to do, and spoke a bit about some of his crazy adventures – including a 350-mile foot race to the North Pole. We spoke about leadership, growth, commitment, and how to have more than 24 hours in a day.
Vinod shares in the interview how he and his wife started a coffee house in 2015 to provide a sip of happiness to every customer, and to enhance the experience around coffee. He shares how they navigated covid and are now looking to expand, and how they have leveraged technology during covid. He also talks about caring for people and building a team on a solid foundation of values.
In the interview, Tauseef opens up about the very personal loss of his mother and cousin and how that inspired him to start a company to make healthcare easier to access for people from their homes. The conviction in his voice, despite all his challenges, was very strong and decisive, and that is a lesson in the embodiment of a purpose for anybody listening.
That’s it for now. If you have any questions or feedback, or if you are new and want to introduce yourself, hit reply. I read and respond to every reply. All the best,
Sumit
P.S. – I am looking to interview more inspirational leaders on my podcast. If you know anyone I should interview, reply back with their name.
(Twitter) @SumitGupta
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