CMI Blog

As we head into another new month in this new year and new decade, many people, I know, struggle with self-doubt and those old messages that play in their heads that convince them they are not worthy – or imposters. Nothing really could be further from the truth - but turning on the light that allows people to step out of their comfort zones and send limited belief systems packing is not always a simple process. 

I think that the ability to help people flip that switch and shift perspectives is one of the reasons that Dan Thurmon is such an in-demand motivational keynote speaker. He inspires audiences to live off balance on purpose – so that they can experience life on an entirely different level and be able to clearly see opportunities that would not have otherwise presented themselves. 

Recently Dan shared a video with three valuable strategies for dispelling the “imposter syndrome” and the absolute power to be found in stepping out of that mindset and into the unfamiliar. One of the things he said really struck home, “The most valuable people in a team are those who can enter the unfamiliar and become what’s necessary.” 

Wow. It made me want to search for a few other “Dan-isms” that I thought might make a difference for those who are eager to make this a breakthrough year personally and professionally. 

Here are some of my favorites: 

• “If you limit yourself to what’s comfortable, you deny yourself what’s possible.”
• “You’ll never reach your full potential. Your potential is infinite.”
• “Getting a G.R.I.P. means, “Grasp Reality. Influence the Process.”
• “Don’t compartmentalize your life. Connect it.”
• “Success in life is not determined by your circumstances, but by your actions.”

Dan feels  the reason that people struggle with change is that they believe they have to compartmentalize their life and keep everything in balance. He regularly says that work/life balance thing is a myth, by the way. Instead, Dan teaches that we need to ask these questions:  What if you lived Off Balance On Purpose? What if instead of resisting uncertainty, you leaned into it? And what if rather than bringing your “work-self” to the office, you brought 100% of who you are?

That’s where the magic is. Leaning into who you truly are and all you were put here on earth to do. I love Dan’s messages and the energy and insights he brings to the stage and I think you will to! 

To learn more about Dan, head over to his profile and see a little more about why he’s invited back again and again by clients around the world. While you’re there, be sure to check out all our extraordinary keynote speakers. We love what they stand for, and what they do to challenge audiences and inspire change!  We’re here if you need us! Make it an amazing week!

When you teach what you've learned, you actually learn it much more deeply. You give language to what you already understand. But don't diminish what you already have learned. 

I see over and over again, people who say, this is my struggle, this is my limitation. When you say that you essentially reinforce it, and you make it so much more difficult to move on. Life's too short to keep starting over with something so important and meaningful. We have to plant the flag that says, I've got this, I've learned this lesson. This is my new base camp. This is the point with which I'm going to start and then reach for something even greater. So I can continue that journey of evolution.

If you go down that road, you will get to a point where you can take on the daunting challenges. If you limit yourself to what's comfortable, you deny yourself what's possible. In other words, I've just upped my commitment, are you going to up yours?

When you do, you have to get very specific about the goal. It's not just to catch, it's more specific. That's important, and they're all different. But the moment one of them is out of my hand, it's also out of my control. I need to let it go. So I can handle the next one with equal attention and commitment. 

If you feel overwhelmed, it's probably from the inability to disengage from what is already out of your hand. You must let go in order to get a grip. Notice it's not some incredible, unbelievable show-stopping moment. What it is, is a meditation of concentration, excellence, performance, and focus. I'm looking up, I'm slowing down. I'm handling each one uniquely. And then those moments give me opportunities to expand into new variations or opportunities.

It is remarkable what people can do when they set their minds to it - when they put together ideas and programs that move people to take action in incredible ways. It’s one of the things we love best here at cmi – being surrounded by the talent and passion we see in the keynote speakers we represent. 

This week, I’m honored to share that Mike Rayburn will be keynoting for a powerful event, The 15th Annual Chapter Leadership Conference for the  American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. 

Their theme is Saving Lives in Your Community, and it kicks off their bold initiative goal to reduce suicide by 20% by 2025. In a world so often riddled with heartache over the loss of loved ones gone much too soon, I am in awe of this audacious goal and Rayburn is the perfect speaker to deliver empowerment, energy, and hope to the AFSP Chapter Volunteers, Chapter Board Members, and staff from all across the United States. More than 40% of the audience is expected to be first time attendees, so they really wanted someone who could bring everyone together with a unifying message and motivation. 

Mike will share his What If keynote, which challenges audiences to ask big, bold questions of themselves, get out of their comfort zones, and let their imaginations and inspiration take the helm to create pathways of new discovery and achieve the unexpected.  For volunteers with such an important role helping people – I know it will bring a bright spark to the first full day of their conference. 

Rayburn’s unique blend of music, humor, thought leadership, and heart is a big win for any audience. Go do what you do best Mike – helping other people to bring out their boldest self! 

Excerpt from Digital Persuasion by Erin King

In thirteen years of my own discovery and working with some of the world’s biggest brands, I’ve developed a formula that leverages proven success patterns to craft a more persuasive way of communicating through the screen. I didn’t have a good name for this formula until the day I remembered the first time I subconsciously used it—in the email I sent to my Professor offering him the Irish pub map. And it hit me: Be personal. Be useful. Be brief.

Effective digital messaging that rises above the noise follows these three rules:

1. Personal. Is this message leading with something highly personal to my recipient?
2. Useful. Am I offering something of actual value to my recipient?
3. Brief. Is this message shockingly short?

If you can craft your message maximizing those three steps, you will register as Friend or Server, and you’ll avoid being categorized by your recipient’s brain as a Foe or Seller. You will inspire an action. You will ignite some kind of engagement. You will open an opportunity.

When you’re not sure what to write or how to approach someone, just head to the PUB. Sounds simple, right? Fair warning: writing a message that’s Personal, Useful, and Brief can be challenging. In fact, it’s usually much harder to be concise than to just write out a long sales pitch. Being succinct is always more challenging than showing up and throwing up.

But taking the time to research and create the perfect PUB message is your digital differentiation edge. It determines whether you are heard or ignored. It decides whether your message is processed as Friend or Foe, Seller or Server.

Which one will your recipient decide you are?

Setting Bold Goals

The way I use the question “What if”  is to think outside the box and set goals that are crazy. I call it write music that you can't play. Set goals for yourself where you don't know how, but you know what. Don't start with what's possible. Start with: what's cool, what's right. 

When you have a goal like this, from my experience of goal setting, three things are going to happen:

#1: When you set this goal, you'll have a completion date, and you probably won't make it. We usually don't make it in time. Why? You've never done it before. This is a new thing. So you're setting out to do something that's not been done and you don't know how long it'll take. Be ready for it to change. 

#2: When you get back home and you start to act on your new goal, you will have a plan in the beginning and it will not go according to your plan. You have to have the plan in the beginning but it's going to change. You have to be flexible. 

#3: I want you to remember this for the day you get back at work. To do things you have never done, you have to start by doing things you've never done.

One of the boldest goals I ever set for myself was to learn how to play Bohemian Rhapsody on the guitar. It took a lot of work and accepting these three things as they happen.

The person introducing a keynote speaker gets the audience's attention and sets the tone for the talk and for the experience. To make the most of your presentation of presenters – I thought I’d share a few industry tips.

1. Prepare. Be sure to meet with your keynote speaker well before they take the stage to get their introduction, any guidance on their preferences, and definitely the correct pronunciation of their name! (I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen that go sideways!) Most keynoters are professionals with enough experience behind them, they’ll have some ideas on best practices for their particular topic. 
2. Practice. Even the most experienced keynote speakers practice and rehearse before they take the stage, so should you. Take some time to rehearse your introduction and cadence before you take the microphone. 
3. Let your confidence come to the surface. Your team or organization has made a great decision to bring a professional keynote speaker to the audience. Bring a confidence to your delivery style as you help the audience welcome both speaker, and the message they are about to convey. 
4. Brevity is your friend. The best introduction are short and sweet. They deliver enough about the keynote speaker to provide authority and context without losing interest. It’s an intro, not a novel! 
5. Tee up the topic. Tease your audience with a little bit of what they are about to hear and why the topic is so important to them, and to your organization. 

A successful speech is “all in the delivery” as they say. Be thoughtful, be yourself, and be prepared and you’ll do just fine! If you want to learn more tips and tools for your next event or how to hire the best keynote speaker possible for your organization, give me a call. We specialize in bringing remarkable speakers together with clients from all over the globe. We’d love to be of service!

Our world has changed psychologically, and specifically because of social media. What do I mean by that? Go back with me twenty years ago, before social media existed. There was a cultural understanding that if you were sitting in a room and you did not hold a position of leadership, you did not have a say. Generally, we were okay with that. We understood that. It's just how the world worked. But today, that's not how people think. 

Everyone, especially the younger workforce, because of social media, has a voice and a platform for that voice. They're used to being heard and therefore they think they should be heard. If you hire an eighteen-year old intern today they think they have a say tomorrow. You might not agree with that. You might even think that's really stupid. 

That's the problem. 

People support what they help create

We want people to be committed at the point of implementation. If you think that commitment happens to the point of implementation, you're missing the boat. Commitment actually happens at the point of creation. People need to be involved. They need a sense of ownership. The pushback I get from leaders is that it takes too long. I agree with you. It does take a long time. 

I'm not saying that in your organization, every single person needs to be involved in every decision that is made. But what I am asking you is, do your people feel heard? Do they feel like they have a voice? Do they feel like they have a say?

I’ve heard leaders say they want people who have independent thinking, I agree with that. But if that independent thinking is never listened-to or acted upon, that stifles that independent thinking pretty quickly. People support what they help create. We have to create buy-in by engaging and involving our people. The best leaders understand how to do that.

Chris Bashinelli describes the importance of tying our purpose into a purpose that is greater than ourselves.

It's not about working harder. It's about working smarter. I'm going to propose an idea: take five focused minutes at the beginning of each day. Sit down at your computer before you start working. Sit down and breathe. Close your eyes if possible, and see what ideas come to you. Rather than going with that initial urge to check email, to respond to text messages, allow some space and ask yourself, “What is the most important thing I have to do today?”. Or perhaps don't ask yourself anything, just allow the space to be there. That space will translate in the next few minutes to the most important task that you have to complete that day. Or maybe it will arise in the form of a new idea.

This is called mindfulness and it can be incredibly beneficial during our work lives. According to an article in Mindful.org, “at times of excessive pressure at work, practicing a short mindfulness exercise can be a savior.” Most find the slow-down a struggle but it can lead to incredible results in our day-to-day lives. The more you do, the easier it will be. 

Slow down, be mindful for new ideas 

It's easy to keep yourself busy. It's easy to work 10 or 12 hours a day. It's easy, but perhaps it's not the wisest thing to do. What's wiser is to give yourself some space in your life where you can allow new ideas to come, where you can allow your creative expression to come through. Some of the greatest ideas I've had, some of the greatest exercises, some of the greatest stories haven't come when I'm sitting down at my desk writing and responding to emails. They've actually come after I finish eating breakfast or when I'm out for a hike allowing what I've been focusing on and thinking about, to bubble to the surface with a new idea. 

If we're always busying ourselves we will never actually be aware of that bubble when it pops to the surface. To be aware of that idea and aware of that bubble, we have to create mindful space in our work-life, where we can allow those ideas to surface. It can lead to greater results than you thought possible.

Did you know that every conscious decision that has ever been made has been made at least twice?

As humans - the first thing we do, before choosing to take an action, is to visualize ourselves completing that action. We take the time for a hypothetical run through  in our minds eye. And only once we can see ourselves doing something, do we then actually choose to move forward with that action.

This means that if you want more people to take action, then your ability to have them see themselves taking that action, prior to you inviting them to take that action, will enhance their choosing to respond positively to the ask.

We are talking about allowing others to paint pictures in their own minds and insert these images into their memory. This is content creation for the human mind.

Watch Phil discuss this idea at a recent event:

Influence in making easier decisions

Content creation holds huge value in the world of marketing, yet the most powerful tool for content creation is in the minds of the people you are looking to influence. The human brain is an incredibly powerful "search engine" and by feeding it with quality content - the more likely this content will be recalled when decisions need to be made.

Leaders, sales professionals and entrepreneurs are all in the business of influencing others and an often overlooked area of influence is our ability to support others in their decision making process. Taking the time to allow others to see themselves in situations that are the result of their action or inaction is a fabulous tool to encourage them to choose that very action.

There are really only three types of situations that you should look to have someone see themselves in that will assist them to do as you are asking:

1. Moving towards something that will make them more comfortable
2. Moving away from something that makes them uncomfortable
3. Achieving something that makes their heart sing

Your tool for creating these images in the minds of others are your conversations and quite often it's the quality, and not the quantity of these conversations that has the greatest impact on your results.

Put simply - the difference between you winning and losing could be knowing Exactly What to Say, when to say it and how to make it count.

When you can reach for the right words, at the right time you are far more likely to achieve the right result.

Changing your words can very easily change your world.