Are You Open To Some Feedback?

My wife, Jewell, and I have been giving each other positive and constructive feedback for 20 years. Many people think the way we give feedback is “weird” or “strange”. It works for us. I learned this technique in corporate America and brought it into the Team Tunstall household.
Many employees and even senior leaders I have worked with in my business career view feedback as a four letter word. Bad four letter words. Most of us instantly think of being called into the boss’ office and being given “negative” feedback on our performance or style. The best leaders use positive and constructive feedback as a way to develop their employees’ careers and motivate higher work performance. We believe this philosophy can be used in relationships as well.

Jewell and I do view feedback as a four letter word. That word is GIFT. It’s a gift to have someone care enough about you to be genuine, candid and honest enough to let you know what you are doing well and what you can improve in to be a better person, spouse or parent. It is such a strong message of “I care about you and want you to do well”. It is not meant to hurt the other person, which is manipulation.

The technique that Jewell and I use is to ask the other person for permission to provide feedback by simply stating “Are you open to some feedback?” Those six simple words set the stage to eliminate all defensiveness and ensure the timing is right for a healthy dialogue. We all have had times when now is not the right time for feedback, it happens and it’s OK. Jewell and I have had many instances where we said “not right now, maybe later”.

Keep in mind this technique is for positive feedback as well as constructive feedback. When we have examples of something wonderful that the other person did, we make sure we use those magic six words. This is critical because we don’t want ‘Are you open to some feedback?” to be only for constructive feedback. Remember, it’s a gift and we do it because we care.
A couple of critical things to keep in mind when giving feedback in this style are to make sure it is immediate and specific as possible. You don’t want to wait two weeks to give someone feedback. They may not remember the situation and you lose two weeks in modifying or continuing that behavior.

Specificity is critical. Eliminate general statements like “you seemed upset”, “you were angry” or “I liked your style”. Get in the details of what you saw or heard like “I noticed you were crying”, “Your face got beet red and you raised your voice to him” or “You walked with confidence by having great posture and making eye contact”. The more specific you are the clearer the person can replay a movie in their head of what they did in the situation. The better the person can refer to the situation the more likely a dialogue will take place. You want a dialogue to happen not a monologue.

I challenge you to give this technique a shot in the next week. It will feel awkward at first but all new behaviors feel a little strange in the beginning. Try the six magic words with positive feedback first. Positive feedback is always more comfortable to give than constructive feedback. Notice how the other person reacts when you ask permission to provide them feedback. Reflect on how it made you feel.

We would love to hear your comments about your experiences with “Are You Open to Some Feedback”. Please feel free to write back on our blog site with what you experienced. Also, if you know of others that may benefit from this challenge please pass our blog along to them.

Until next time, Control your Destiny or Someone Else Will!

MMA...

With this weekend's big Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Pay Per View Extravaganza, I thought this title might draw some attention.

This MMA is Manage My Attitude...That's my focus for the week.

Many people believe that attitude is everything. I believe attitude is extremely important in being successful, but isn't everything. Other critical areas of success include goal setting, relationships, action and reflection but this week it's all attitude for me.

Our attitude plays a key role in our relationships, career, and family life. Our attitude affects many people, whether we believe it or not. A crummy attitude can turn a great atmosphere into a "get me out of here" environment just as a positive attitude can turn a disengaged group into an inspired team. John Maxwell states, "Our attitude can be our best friend or our worst enenmy". We have that choice.

This week I have documented three "lessons learned along the way" in managing my attitude.

• Realize that I have at least two ways to look at things. Pessimism or optimism. Do I look for difficulty or opportunity in challenges? What can I do more of, better or differently to make a situation better? This week I will focus on the opportunity and look up instead of down.


• Use positive affirmations. When I started using this technique over 10 years ago, I thought it was "goofy" and not for me. I learned I was wrong. Zig Ziglar turned me onto this technique in his recordings. This has been a critical tool for me because I do believe the words we say to ourselves can impact our attitude. I use positive affirmations throughout the day and recently have set aside 15 minutes in the morning to focus exclusively on positive statements. I repeat statements to myself such as: "I have a vision in life for myself and my family", "I can use today to make myself a better person", "I look forward to helping someone today", "I have many things to be grateful for", "I will improve in my mind, body and spirit", "I will surround myself with positive people", and "I am a hard worker and will have balance in my life".


• Desire and persistence. I truly believe the most successful people in the world have an excess of these two traits. I like to focus on using statements around the desire to keep to the work, keep believing, keep hoping and staying focused. I must believe I have the ability, persistently hone and develop my skills in areas of expertise and really have the confidence that what I am doing is important and significant.

I am starting to find that focusing on these three areas of my attitude first thing in the morning has helped me to start the day with the expectation that today is going to be a great day. If the expectation is right in front of you first thing in the morning, it is more likely to continue throughout the day. We get what we expect.

Thanks for taking time to read this about my attitude, and how I try to make it the most positive everyday. Doesn't work all the time but I do my best. Take a look at monitoring your attitude throughout the day and make changes if you need to. As Will Rogers said "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be".

Tomorrow is Laser Focus Friday - have goals set, and ready to roll....

Pride....

Pride is a word that I have been thinking about for the last several days. Webster's defines pride as "delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship". I am always proud of my wife and children, unconditionally. One other aspect of my life that I am very proud of is my involvement with the Personal Development industry, specifically LifePath Unlimited.


I recently decided to leave Corporate America after 18 years to have more time and flexibility with my wife and 2 children. I desired more freedom, flexibility and the ability to control my destiny and income. I know that wealth and abundance is rarely realized in the corporate world by 99% of the employees. So after 2-3 months of consideration and research, my wife, Jewell, and I agreed to start our own business around our passion - personal development.


Jewell and I have been personal development "nuts" since hearing our first Zig Ziglar cassette in 1991. The cassettes that we would listen to on the way to work and on trips changed our lives. We experienced six years of infertility before we were blessed with our two children adopted from South Korea. The words, quotes and messages in the personal development cassettes and later on, compact discs, were the foundation that kept us positive on the infertility "rollercoaster" of physical and emotional stress. Looking back, I am very proud of how we handled 6 years of infertility - the doctor visits, the treatments, the shots, the medications, the monthly disappointment, the financial pressure. We believed Zig, Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Colin Powell, and many others were speaking directly to us. We would quote the messages and remind each other of positive affirmations when one of us was down.


Our life has drastically changed since those years. We have two beautiful and loving children that God has truly blessed us with. Payne and Kate were our destiny, we are sure of that. Our life has changed also in that we own our own business. We are so excited about this opportunity and new chapter in our lives. We have had naysayers say "how could you leave a good job in this economy?" and "what are you doing?". We also have had people congratulate us and express their admiration for our decision. We expected both types of responses. My pride comes in the fact that we took a risk, a big risk that we truly believe is the best journey we can take in life now. The key factor in our decision to start our own business was our passion in personal development and the belief that we can be successful in whatever we apply our persistence and discipline to.


We have been blessed to have found LifePath Unlimited in our research and become a part of the organization. It is a company that puts personal development first, and developing your own business second. It's the perfect match for us. We get to learn more about ourselves, develop our skills, open our belief systems, and run our own business while helping people. LifePath is a company of high integrity that supports their team members with top of the line training, support and positive energy. It has been the best 6 weeks of my life in a long time. I have met and talked with so many positive people that have big dreams and confidence. It has inspired us to think and dream big as well.


I am very proud to be a part of the LifePath team. I know Jewell is to. My dream is to be a leader within the organization and to help as many people as I can achieve their goals and dreams as well. As a corporate leader, the greatest satisfaction I received was seeing team members do big things, flawlessly execute tough assignments, earn promotions and develop their skills.

I know that I will get that satisfaction and sense of pride with our LifePath business.

The Montel Williams Show...

I recently listened to an interview from SUCCESS Magazine with Montel Williams, the former TV talk show host. Prior to this interview, I did not know much about Montel Williams. After the interview, I am very impressed and inspired by his positive attitude and desire to control his own destiny in spite of significant challenges.

For 17 years he hosted The Montel Williams Show, a daily, one-hour, nationally syndicated talk show. In addition to receiving the 1996 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show host, Montel's program was also nominated for Outstanding Talk Show in 2001, and Outstanding Talk Show Host in 2002.

Montel currently hosts a radio show and is the author of the New York Times bestselling inspirational memoirs Climbing Higher and Mountain, Get Out of My Way, and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Bodychange.

Montel was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1999 and tried to commit suicide on the streets of New York City. Once his TV talk show was cancelled, he saw an opportunity for impactful change in his life. He began a new journey of exercise, diet, research, knowledge and meditation to help him deal with the pain and to control his emotions to prevent depression and feeling sorry for himself.

Montel has partnered with experts to conduct research on how people can make themselves happy. He believes “Happiness comes from how you interact and what you give, not what you get.” The research has shown we are responsible for our happiness – 50% of happiness is genetics, 10% being environmental and 40% controlled by the way we think.

Montel believes there are 8 traits that happy people share:

1. Deeply enjoy relationships with friends and family
2. Are grateful for everything life offers
3. Think positively and optimistically about the future
4. Strongly commit to life goals
5. Be generous and forgiving to others
6. Be resilient and self confident
7. Savor all of life’s moments
8. Are physically active on a daily basis

As I mentioned earlier, I was not familiar with the Montel Williams story. I am now inspired by this man of great talent, discipline and tenacity. He has had career highs and lows, fought a disease, maintained an incredible physical and mental spirit and genuinely wants to give back to others.

He certainly may have found the formula for happiness.

I miss 100% of the shots....

My new friend, Michael Hamburger, from Phoenix, Arizona sent me a quote last night that I am having a hard time getting out of my head (I know, sounds a little obsessive-compulsive and I can't argue with that) from the greatest hockey player of all time, #99 Wayne Gretzky.

For those of you who are not hockey or even sports fans, Gretzky was a "man among boys" in his prime with the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings. Upon his retirement on April 18, 1999, he held forty regular-season records, fifteen playoff records, and six All- Star records. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season—a feat he accomplished four times. Simply known as "The Great One".

The quote from Gretzky is a simple 10 word statement - "You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."

No doubt that Gretzky took a lot of shots in his career, missed many, made more. The reason this quote has been on my mind the last 24 hours that it makes me think of 2 words - RISK and FEAR.

We often go about our daily lives thinking if we "should take that shot". It's a risk, one we don't know if we are prepared for because we are afraid of the possible consequences. I'd bet a paycheck that Gretzky didn't think about negative consequences or have any fear from taking a shot but rather a confident focus that a positive action (a goal) may occur. He was focused on training his mind and body to expect the best to happen and this led to his greatness on the ice.

The book " Who Moved My Cheese" has a wonderful question that relates to this quote. "What would you do if you were not afraid?". I think about this often. What would occur if I wasn't afraid what people would think of me, if I didn't mind looking silly, or if I didn't mind trying something I had never done before. What's the worst thing that could happen if we weren't afraid and took that shot?

So, as you live your life think about taking that shot, doing something you know may be a risk, something you may be a little afraid of. Remember two things, you won't be as successful if you don't take that shot and what's the worst thing that may happen.?

I bet you will score more than you miss.

Wet Diapers

I was listening to one of my favorite leadership gurus, Ken Blanchard, on a radio show. He had a great sound byte - "The only people that like change are babies with wet diapers." It made me laugh (LOL) and the comment also made me reflect on how I react to change.

We all have examples in our life of minor and major changes (going to college, leaving the parents, new jobs, marriage, divorce, having kids, changing careers, losing jobs, etc.). Change is hard. I believe that managing change starts with having a clear picture of the future and the importance of the vision.

In our daily, monthly and yearly "changes", we all need to really seek to understand the change and how it will positively impact you in the future. Even though you may initially view the change as negative, there are positive aspects if you look hard enough and ask yourself reflection and awareness questions.

Some tips I have learned along the way to manage, accept and thrive in change are:

1. Does this change get me passionate? Would I do it for free (well, almost free) if I won the lottery?


2. What skills do I have that are marketable if this change is not something I am passionate about - make a list of these skills, seek feedback on your list from your spouse, children and friends


3. Keep in mind the transitions are often harder than the actual change. Focus on the small steps within the transition rather than trying to "eat an elephant" by focusing on the end result of change.


4. Change typically requires some sort of new behavior. Be aware of that. You may have to learn new skills, and/or take a different approach to thinking to make this a positive experience.


5. View change as a way of life. In today's world, if you aren't changing, you are left behind. Develop an attitude of flexibility and adaptability and you will be in the top 95th percentile of people. This is valuable.

Questions to ask yourself about your ability to manage change:

1. Do I typically look at change as a nuisance or opportunity?


2. Do you focus on what will be lost, or the possibilities?


3. Do you get frustrated that change doesn't seem to stop, or do you consider each as an improvement over the current situation?


4. Do you need to gather more information about the change in order to view this as a positive thing?

I am sure something in our lives will change in the next 48 hours. Think about how you react and manage change when it happens.

Change is not just for babies with wet diapers.