It's Time to Keep It Fresh and Build Someone Up

I'm off to do a series of workshops in Albany, NY, through Thursday and a 360 feedback session in NYC on Friday. My hope is to bring experiences from the workshops into the conversation here--as long as I can stay awake long enough at night to do the posts!

Are You Ready for a Dab of Freshness in Your Life?

In the midst of preparing to head out, I realized that this workshop--Presenting With Impact-- is something I have been doing for 28 years. It's one that I had designed while living in the Middle East and Europe, and has accounted for 30% of ongoing business relationships over the years.

It was designed originally for clients who do business internationally, and continues to include the most effective ways of designing and communicating with diverse groups around the globe.

I still get buzzed just before each one starts. Why? Because there are fresh questions, new participants with fascinating backgrounds and engaging personal styles, and new relationships as a result.

Ann Michael started me thinking about this with her Keeping It Fresh post. Ann talks about deleting blogs  she's been reading if they start to feel stale and repetitive. (Hmm. I'll have to check the stats and see if she's been around here recently). She really caught my attention with a question:

"How important is it to balance being consistent, and thereby fulfilling audience expectations, with staying fresh and relevant?"

Regardless of your "audience," what are you doing to keep it fresh and stay relevant? (Be sure to let Ann know).

One Satisfying Solution: Build Others Up

I realized that the Presenting With Impact workshop is always exciting because:

1. It involves just about every aspect of successful communication and relationship building. Good presentations are about "talking with," not "talking at."

2. It's the only time I get to see results immediately. Other engagements involving large scale changes and  leadership development are exercises in delayed gratification.

3. It's totally devoted to building others up. In a world--and often a business environment--where people want to seem bigger by trying to make others smaller, this is a way to watch others grow. Right before your eyes.

While putting this together I saw that Steve Farber is about to kick off a series of posts with the theme GTY (Greater Than Yourself). That sounds like a good building-up source and some really worthwhile reading to help steer people in that direction.

When it comes to staying fresh, what could be better than finding ways to impact and build the lives of others?

What will you today to help make that happen?

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Photo attribution: www.delasalle.org.uk

Comments

[Shane]

There was a local indie band here in Vancouver that I used to go and watch once in a while. They would take their flagship songs and extend them sometimes and morph the rock riffs into Jazz, Reggae, Funk ... whatever.

It kept it fresh.

[Steve Roesler]

Now there's a profession that rewards people who keep things fresh...

You guys out there have cornered the market on fresh music for quite a while now. We're jealous back here!

Thanks, Shane

[Billy Smith]

Thanks Steve for calling out us to lift others up and challenging us. This also shows the power on being on your knees. So many people want to be above others, but getting on your knees shows that you are there to help and being below another person is something you care about.

[Steve Roesler]

I was visualizing that image, Billy.

As a dedicated gym rat, I realized that it takes much more strength to lift a heavy weight over one's head than to push that same weight down into the mud.

And it's a lot cleaner, too.

[peter vajda]

Hi Steve,

For me, I think that often times we do choose to look for ways to be different, new, fresh in our relationships. In addition to searching to find or create, perhaps there's another way for one to be fresh, and support another at the same time, and that is, by "not" doing...not doing those things that get in the way of being supportive, honoring, respectful, while recognizing the dignity and human-ness of another. For example,

-making a positive comment about another whom others are gossiping about
-not needing to be the life of the party and allowing another to have the floor or spotlight today and being attentive to them
-not needing to say "yes, but" or "however" when someone offers a suggestion, a solution or idea and insteadd just saying, authentically, "thank you."
-not needing to make the sarcastic or cutting remark which we thinks make us look smart and witty (while demeaning the other) and just making the honest intention to shut up.
-sharing information with another from whom we usually withold. "I thought you might need this...." from an honoring, mutually-respectful place.
-being positive and refraining from needing to say, "why this won't work." Again, saying authentically, "thank you."
-choosing to listen, really listen, and ask questions, of another rather than hiacking their experience and making it "all about me."
-asking another, "What do you think"...and allowing them to say what's on their mind, with a simple and honest "thank you" with no need to embellish, judge, critique, one-up, fix....
etc., etc., etc.

Sometimes we don't need to wander far and wide and look outside for the new, the fresh, the creative...sometimes all we need to do is look inside and note how we tend to demoralize, beat up, disrespect, and otherwise keep people from feeling alive, juicy, and torn down. This alone can often build folks up and support them to feel heard and be seen and feel relevant.

[Valeria Maltoni]

I like what Peter is saying here. I've often found that the best move can be no move at all. The more we try and make things better through us, the less we may give other people the chance to shine.

As for keeping things fresh -- a river never runs over the same stones twice. I consider my life an eternal flow.

[Steve Roesler]

Peter and Valeria,

Please forgive the single response. Just got back to the hotel room and am still tying up a few loose ends around the workshop tomorrow.

It just amazes me when what seems like a simple thought prompts such a deep and meaningful extension of the conversation. How you have framed "building up others" by removing one's self from getting in the way is a wonderfully peaceful way of viewing the gesture.

It's late and now my mind is racing with all of the connections you've generated.

What a gift.

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Very interesting thoughts Steve, and ones I totally agree with. The more you build others up, the better you feel, the better they feel, and the better you are. When you rip others down, you are pulling them down to a level you needn't stick at.

Today, and every day, it's important to focus on how we can build those bridges. Allow people to speak their case, and listen intently. Focus on the good they are doing, instead of all the bad and all the "areas of opportunity." Just smile and say thank you. All of these can help us build up a better world. Thanks for doing your part Steve! I'm looking forward to dinner with you and Kent Blumberg soon :)

[Steve Roesler]

Hey there, Phil,

I think I'll start off by smiling and saying thank you.

Now we've got to find a way to get Kent to travel north again.

How about Karl Ratzch's?

[Algonquin J. Calhoun]

Asa college coach and a manager in the business world, keeping things positive and placing others above one's self developes loyalty and support for common goals expressed by your leadership. Mutual repect developes and soon it is the "all for one and one for all" attitude that evolves into success at attaining goals, be they wins on a field or production in a warehouse.

Love the blog.

Algonquin

[Steve Roesler]

Dear A.J.:

Thanks for adding the wisdom and depth of your wide experience.

Coincentally, I have a close relative with a similar background who often waxes poetic about the same principles.

In the words of William--or was it Holly?--James, "A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain."