I’m often asked if technology addiction is real? Is it really the attention enemy it is made out to be? While I think there is a growing trend among some to make screen-time more important than people-time, I don’t think technology is evil.
Sure, it gets blamed (a lot) for our lack of attention, but when leveraged well, it can help us achieve more in shorter periods of time and create a further reach than we ever thought possible. While we do need to be disciplined in our use of technology, especially while in the company of the terrific people around us, I think the key is to use it for good (productivity) – and not evil (pure distraction).
Here are five ways to use technology for good not evil:
Freedom App. I use this (almost daily) to block websites when I am trying to get work done. Can you use site blocking software to help you get more done?
Spotify. My smart friend Clay Hebert uses this by creating a playlist when he writes. Music can be an awesome conduit to trigger focus and creativity. Have you ever thought about making playlists to help you focus and create an environment of productivity?
Headspace. This is a great app if you want to meditate. I also use my Peloton app (using the Beyond the Ride aspect of the Peloton app) to meditate. I am not good at this yet but I do try to incorporate it regularly. Meditation, they say, is a practice, I sure have a lot to learn about that! Can you use an app to increase mindfulness?
Zoom. This video tool is easy to use and gets people to pay attention in meetings, you can use it record conversation. The great thing about video conferencing, rather than teleconferencing, is the ability to look people in the eye and not allow them to multi-task. Companies like Genie Cast are brilliant at using this tool to provide experts (they call them Genies) to share information with companies using the Zoom platform. Everyone wins. Can you use video platforms to increase attention in meetings?
Podcasts app. I love to listen to podcasts while I get dressed in the morning. One of my clients listens to them while she cooks at night. One of the beauty salons I go to allows guests to choose the podcast we listen to while she gives a treatment! It’s a great way to get in your personal development time in by listening to something that will help develop your skills or shape your beliefs. Can you listen to podcasts while you do a routine activity each day?
I love the idea of using technology wisely to increase productivity and connectivity. We can now share our lives with love ones in an instant. Families spread over states – or even countries can have face-to-face conversations. Teams can meet, in real time, from all over the world without ever getting on an airplane. Like any good thing, using technology in moderation is a powerful tool for all of us. I’d love to hear your favorite ways of managing the pull of technology in your life and business.
If your team is eager to start paying attention to the things that really matter in terms of growing your business, client base, and bottom line – I’d love to chat with you about how I can help. Give me call today to learn more!
Laurie Palau is a Doyelstown, PA based entrepreneur, speaker and owner of SimplyBOrganized. Like her predecessors in the Inspiring Women series, she is a dynamic, hard working woman, with an inspiring work ethic who also happens to be a wife and mother of two teenage girls. She’s not only a friend of mine, but I am a loyal client of hers.
She’s helped me organize my home by creating zones for my high traffic areas, and most importantly, helped create a process for archiving family photos and mementos. By doing something she feels passionately about, she’s created a fantastic, lucrative business that actually improves the lives of the families she works with.
I’m so fortunate to have a phenomenal network of kick a** women in my life. In fact, I’m surrounded by so many of them, I almost live in a bubble. Recently, though, I was reminded that there is still a segment of the population who will call a woman “crazy” or “unstable” if she shows a characteristic other than passiveness. I don’t know how else to to combat such a narrow world view than to continue to speak out, and this series is one of the ways I can do that. By highlighting the success of empowered woman who took a risk, didn’t take no for an answer and reap the benefits of following their instinct I hope we can inspire other women to do the same.
You know I LOVE what you do! I’ve been a client of yours for physical and virtual clutter and think your services are invaluable. Tell our readers exactly how you help your clients.
Most of my clients have an idea of what they want to accomplish-whether it’s decluttering a room, deciding how to maximize a space, or dealing with paper clutter. I help develop a strategy by breaking their overwhelm into a manageable action plan that they can either execute themselves or hire us to do with them.
What is the most problematic/cluttered areas in your clients’ homes and how do you combat it?
I’m a relatively new runner. If you’ve ever been in those particular athletic shoes, you know that there some pain involved in that process. I was running with Coach Dave, and we started talking about this very topic. He said I needed to learn the difference between pain and discomfort.
Right? That made a light bulb go off for me, in a much larger context than how many miles I was putting in. It made me think about all those times when you feel hurt, or had a niggling feeling that something wasn’t right. Those are the red flags used by our body and mind to capture our attention. We need to listen to those signals and determine if we are in pain… or just uncomfortable.
Coach Dave and I agreed that it’s about persisting through discomfort. Some of our biggest breakthroughs are achieved personally and professionally when we are willing to power through discomfort until we get to the results we’re eager to achieve. If you’re ready to get to the other side of discomfort and power up your productivity to achieve more greatness in the new year, let’s look at a few strategies to keep in mind.
Know your why. A good WHY is a great motivator. Ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” Why are you working longer hours? Spending more time on planes? Staying late? Getting up early? Putting systems in place? Fine-tuning that vision? Or running that extra mile? If you can articulate the bigger ‘why’ you are more likely to persist, stay focused on the reasons race full-speed ahead towards those important goals.
Know your time table. No, not math. Your timeframe for accomplishment. Listen, if you don’t believe it already – let me be the first to share: you are better than you think. You are more capable than you believe. You have gifts and guts and talents that are unique and mighty to YOU. So, give yourself that. Then set a definitive timeframe to achieve your goal. You might surprise yourself at how much you will endure. Can you run an extra mile (or an extra 10 minutes)? Can you read a little longer to get educated (even though you are tired)? Can you make two more phone calls (even though it feels as if everyone is saying no to you today)? Set yourself a timeframe of how long you are willing to be uncomfortable and as my friend says, “Just keep going until you hit it, not quit it.”
Know your rewards. They are different for everyone. Are you motivated by taking a break? Calling a friend? Getting new shoes (my Achilles, pun intended). Determine the reward that most motivates you to move through discomfort. Articulate that what hitting those goals will feel like on the other side. You will feel fitter. Your relationships will soar. Your business skyrocket. Your sales go through the roof. Marathon medals are within your grasp. Hold those visions in your mind when feeling uncomfortable and they’ll help you power through the tough stuff.
Now, go knock your goals out of the park. Set some that get you out of the comfort zones and into the s-t-r-e-t-c-h that will see your life, your business and your mind expand exponentially. Make a no-ruts policy for the next twelve months and power through. I’d love to hear from you. What can you do to persist through discomfort?
When you’re looking for a female motivational keynote speaker with the kind of leadership, sales and productivity strategies that will help your team become more engaged and driven towards their goals? Excited about their part in your organization? Eager to adopt the tools to increase profitability, productivity and accountability? Neen James is the attention expert and speaker to call.
Global Gurus is a research organization who researches and ranks the Top 30 professional speakers worldwide in a variety of categories. This research allows corporations, organizations, non-profits, event planners and bureaus understand who are the most referred and recommended professional speakers within their industry. It’s a great way for those searching for keynote speakers to determine who to choose for their next event.
Global Gurus only earn revenue from advertisers on their site, not from a GURU or GURU candidates. Unlike other “Top Guru” or “Best…” lists out there, they do not sell rankings nor give any ranking consideration to organizations who advertise. All Global Guru Sites choose remarkable leaders who makes an impact and who from people who took time to vote for them. They are NOT industry leaders, but people who support knowledge and personal / organizational development in their fields through speaking, training, books, and media.
Thanks to YOU and to those that recommended me to the list, I’ve been selected in the TOP 30 for both World’s Best Leadership Speakers and World’s Best Coaching Speakers. You cannot imagine how delighted and humbled I am by this selection and from your kindness and willingness to nominate me.
Next time you or your event is in need of a coach or professional speaker, visit the Global Gurus website and choose the topic of your choice.
Recently I had the privilege of speaking at the SHRM Volunteer Leadership Summit in Washington, DC with four of my speaker friends that I frequently recommend to others. We are part of a group called The Keynoters and clients often hire us together to speak at their events. We had so much fun being the leadership track for this important Human Resource professional’s event.
Some of our favorite comments received were from the meeting planners and attendees — all sharing how much they enjoyed watching us support each other in the sessions. The format required two of us present at a time in rooms beside each other. As there are five of us, we would help the others when we weren’t presenting by providing handouts, moving chairs, doing whatever needed to be done.
Here’s what you need to know: people are always watching. And they pay attention not only to what you say, but what you do. We all enjoy each other’s company, we love seeing the others succeed and we love serving clients together. Behaviors follow beliefs. We all believe in the other presenters and providing the most valuable experience for our client and our audience.
If you want to get attention for your products, your projects, your team, consider referring others. It’s a win-win-win-win-win – you get the idea!
Here are five ways you can get attention by referring your peers:
Create a strong network. Know who you can trust, what their strengths and talents are and who you can recommend to clients, customers, members, friends and colleagues.
Explore client needs. Know your clients’ challenges, concerns and big picture goals, then make suggestions for them. When you do, you become their trusted advisor, and go-to resource.
Make connections. Don’t just mention people to each other, make an actual introduction via email or a teleconference. Give a few reasons why you think there might be a good fit between them. Make it easy for others to do business together.
Follow up. Don’t stop at introductions. Be sure to follow up to see if those you recommend were able to connect.
Build advocates. When you actively refer others and constantly strengthen your network, you can build strong relationships with people who will become advocates for you and your work. Foster those relationships, reach out to them regularly and keep them informed of what you are doing. When you do, you’ll often find yourself on the receiving end of a referral of your own!
Pay attention to the needs of your clients, members, patients, and team members and colleagues. Actively look for the connections that could be opportunities for others to play a role in someone else’s success. In doing so you’ll elevate your relationships with all of the above to being both an expert at what you do – and a positive facilitator for connectivity. Have some fun with it! I can tell you that The Keynoters and I sure do!
Want to learn more ways to identify opportunities to recommend others when you can’t be all things to all people? Here’s how to have a network of professionals you know and trust to recommend and refer when your area of expertise isn’t the best fit.
This video will guide you on how to:
– Recommend the right professional to fit your customer’s needs
– Make connections between professionals so cold calls aren’t necessary
– Build trust with your clients and contacts to become their go-to resource for professionals
When you pay attention to your clients’ needs, you can be a hero by recommending others who are experts ready to solve their problems.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and if you are in the market for a good referral or think I might have some connections that could help you with an event, project or problem, please don’t hesitate to call me today. I’d love to assist!
I love millennials. I love their energy. Their insights. Their outside-the-box, or even no-box-at-all eagerness and drive. Recently, I was asked by one of my awesome clients, who is always traveling that cutting edge, if I would help them craft a training program for their millennial team members.
Those folks between 20 and 30 in their organization who were moving into mid-level management. He asked, “How can we get their attention in positive ways and KEEP it?” Smart guy-right?
What we did was design a program that was focused on four important areas:
Communication skills. Millennials are amazing at technology and connection, and those are wonderful things. Your training should complement those presenting skills as well as teach valuable listening skills.
Leadership. While management is obviously about looking after tasks, leadership is really about understanding strategy. Share that distinction with them so they can bring their uniqueness to their roles. Then help them understand what kind of leader they are now, and help them set their sights on the kind of leader they want to be in the future.
Delegation skills. Teach your team to understand how to delegate responsibly to others, and also how to be the kind of leader who can be delegated to as well. I like to tell my clients that when you think about delegation, think of it as a pie. 80% of that pie is the work that you have to do yourself. That leaves 20%, of which 10% should be delegated to people who are learning to do YOUR job, and 10% learning to do your BOSS’S job. That way the whole organization continues to GROW in the right direction.
Productivity. Millennials are famous for being tech-savvy and extraordinary multi-taskers. Accelerating productivity calls for not just learning how to manage time, but to FOLD time. In my book Folding Time, I share hundreds of strategies to do just that. I love what LaSalle Network in Chicago implemented in their organization. Their brilliant mentoring program is called Grandparenting. It’s an ahh-mazing mentoring program where key management leaders look after not only their staff, but the staff level below their staff. It’s a very powerful way to connect everyone. Millennials are so keen to learn and they have so much to share and give. Can you think of some ways you can create that kind of mentorship within your own organization, hospital or credit union?
Lastly, look at all the ways your organization is paying attention to contributing to the community around you. One of the things I really love about this particular generation is how incredibly altruistic they are. They think more globally and they definitely look at the world from a different lens. If you really want to pay attention to this demographic of team members within your organization, create programs that embrace the brilliant uniqueness they offer. Then partner them with people they can learn from who value their contribution – and you’ll have a winning combination that will send productivity through the roof!
Want to know more? Learn to collaborate, coach and communicate millennials by watching this video and learning the following:
– How to get, and keep, the attention of Millennials
– How to focus and improve Millennials communication skills
– How to coach them to become strong leaders in the workplace
When you’re looking for a female motivational keynote speaker with the kind of leadership, sales and productivity strategies that will help your team become more engaged and driven towards their goals? Excited about their part in your organization? Eager to adopt the tools to increase profitability, productivity and accountability? Neen James is the attention expert and speaker to call.
