Category Archives: Elizabeth McCormick

Elizabeth McCormick

7 Habits to Take Your Workplace Culture to New HEIGHTS

By Elizabeth McCormick

Elizabeth McCormick“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”—Vince Lombardi

Your beliefs dictate your behavior and your behaviors create habits that determine your destination. You’re either going towards greatness or obscurity; there is no neutrality to your momentum. So, where are your habits taking you?

Leading your organization towards a specific destination or goal is like being a pilot of a passenger airplane—wherever you go, your company goes. There isn’t an auto-pilot setting for you if you expect to take your team to greater heights.

If you find yourself and your organization stuck, or you’re ready to rev up your engine to soar higher, it may be time to engage your discipline and do the difficult things that other leaders may not do.Encourage a company culture where employees at all levels have the chance to share their ideas, talk about what they do, and possibly mentor new up-and-comers in your organization. Click To Tweet

Here are 7 habits that can help you take your organizational culture to new HEIGHTS:

1. Hopeful Expectations: Whatever you look for is exactly what you will find. If you expect to find problems, you will. If you expect your team to discover creative solutions, exceed their potential, come together as a team and support you, your vision, and your company goals—they will. A positive mindset is the first habit you need to cultivate and grow a winning mindset. Without it, you will fail to see what’s possible.

ACTION PLAN:  When faced with a new idea, prospect, or proposal (especially in a meeting with your team), always communicate the positives first. Encourage and engage your team members to participate in developing new ideas. Cultivate innovation by asking them to spell out the pros and cons of their ideas. Then, when they’re ready, empower them to run with it.

2. Eliminate Multitasking: Just because you’re busy, doesn’t mean you are productive. When too much emphasis is put on multitasking, it could lead to miscommunication, mistakes, frustration, and unmet goals. It’s not about how much you can multitask, it’s about knowing which task can multiply your results.

ACTION PLAN:  Remove all distractions and then decide which task needs your attention and work on it until it’s done. This works for meetings too. Put your devices away and give your full attention to your team. Before you know it, they will follow your lead.

3. Intentional Kindness: Many people have experienced random acts of kindness, but it’s time to be more intentional in showing kindness to yourself and your team members. Become more aware of how you can encourage others, add value, meet the needs you see, and extend grace whenever needed. As you do, you’ll begin to see that spread throughout your organization and beyond.

ACTION PLAN:  Set up a charity of the month. Assign a twelve-person committee with each member taking ownership of one month. Some ideas include collecting Winter Coats and canned food, walking as a team in a fun run or 5K fundraiser, hosting a blood drive, adopting a highway, or spending a day with Habitat for Humanity. Encourage involvement by participating full out.

4. Gear Down: In today’s world, it’s tough to find time to think, yet that’s one of the more critical elements of success. Studies show that intentional down-time improves productivity, energy, and results. Don’t fall for that top-speed mentality or you’ll eventually run out of fuel. Schedule some time to gear down.

ACTION PLAN:  Prioritize some non-negotiable time on your calendar just for you. Create a distraction-free space where you can clear your mind and unplug from everything. Start with just 10 minutes if that’s all you have, but just start. You’ll be amazed at the clarity and productivity you’ll experience as a result.

5. Hidden Opportunities: Being proactive is one of the hidden opportunities that leaders often miss. Instead of waiting to see what the day holds and reacting to that email, phone call or situation, a more strategic approach is to determine responses before calamity strikes.

ACTION PLAN: Along with your yearly planning meetings to finetune the company’s vision and goals, be strategic about anticipating potential problems.  Have an “Anticipation Meeting” with the goal of creating contingency plans and ask each department to develop a “what if” list, along with solutions. This type of strategy allows you and your team to be more creative in your problem-solving abilities while in a calmer state than an emergency allows.

6. Talk It Out: Make it a habit to communicate openly with your team and allow them the opportunity to take part in the conversation. When communication is lost, your teamwork and productivity will suffer right along with your company’s goals.

ACTION PLAN: No one likes to be kept in the dark. Be clear in meetings about expectations, goals, and their command structure. You can also set a time where everyone knows your door is open to talk for topics that need to be dealt with one-on-one.

7. Share the Load: Establish a habit of sharing the load. Delegating important tasks is another way you can honor and empower your team to take on new responsibilities that help to sharpen and show off their strengths.

ACTION PLAN: Encourage a company culture where employees at all levels have the chance to share their ideas, talk about what they do, and possibly mentor new up-and-comers in your organization. When leaders at all levels take ownership of the company vision and goals, there’s no limit to what you and your organization can do.

When you choose winning habits by believing in the potential of your team, looking for the best in others, extending kindness, and creating space for them to give back, share ideas, and lead, you provide the jet fuel to ignite their creativity as you empower them to discover new levels of success. Don’t be satisfied with the status quo—make winning a habit so you and your team can soar to new heights.

Elizabeth McCormick is a Keynote Speaker specializing in Leadership, Sales and Safety presentations. She was recently named #4 on the list of Leadership Experts to Follow Online.  A former US Army Black Hawk Pilot, and author of “The P.I.L.O.T. Method; the 5 Elemental Truths to Leading Yourself in Life;” Elizabeth teaches instantly applicable strategies to boost your employees’ confidence in their own leadership abilities. For more information, please visit: www.YourInspirationalSpeaker.com.

Elizabeth McCormick

Top Ten Tips to Lift Your Leadership

By Elizabeth McCormick

Lift your leadership by Elizabeth McCormickGood leaders are hard to find, and great leaders are even more elusive. Whether there’s a team reporting to you or not, you have the ability to lift your leadership, your level of respect with your peers while also improving your capacity for greater leadership opportunities.

To enhance your own abilities as a leader, begin with an intentional mindset of being open to new ways of thinking and new ways of interacting with your peers, your team, and your organization as a whole.

To lift your leadership, start with this list of “Top Ten Tips:”

1. Listen to Your Team: It’s not necessary for leaders to know everything, but you do need to know what the individual skillsets are in the members of your team, so you will know who to approach to get the answer you need.

It is also important to ask your team for input, and listen to what they have to say. They will appreciate being included in any decision made—especially if it affects their workload, their department, their budget, or the amount of time they have allocated. When your team feels like a valued part of the process, it helps improve both their personal connection and overall commitment to the desired results.

2. Make Tough Decisions: Your team may not like every decision you make, but don’t let that scare you into not making the right decisions, or worse, no decisions at all. For any decision you make, do your research and get feedback from your team. If you are able, explain your decisions diplomatically and address the concerns.

At the very least, your team will feel informed, and be thankful the decision wasn’t theirs to make.

3. Delegate to Team Members: There are many leaders who diminish their potential by hoarding tasks and duties because they’re afraid of what others will think if they ‘can’t do it all.’  This is a misconception that can lead to burnout, and even worse, cause your peers and teammates to lose their trust, respect, and loyalty to you as a leader.

Great leaders are also great delegators. If you are not sure what you can delegate, here’s a general process for you to consider:

Make a list of your specific tasks and duties.

Put your name next to the ones that you absolutely must do yourself. For example: signing checks, attending executive meetings, and certain high-level approvals are not tasks and duties you can delegate.

For the tasks that are left, think of people on your team and their specific skillsets. If they are capable of doing a task at least 80 percent as well as you—then delegate that task.

Empower your team with delegated tasks and duties while also allowing them autonomy needed (meaning—don’t micro-manage them). Be sure to also give them the authority necessary to ask questions and get help if needed. People will surprise you with their skill and abilities when given the trust in an opportunity.

4. Admit When You’re Wrong: Everyone makes mistakes and leaders are no different. When you make a mistake, be up-front with your team. Your honesty and vulnerability will help open a pathway to better trust and communication.

When you show your willingness to trust them with your mistakes, they in turn will feel more valued as a team member and work with you to help correct mistakes, and ensure a lesson is learned for everyone involved. To lead a team effectively, you need to be a part of the team. Click To Tweet

5. Show Appreciation: When your team members do good work, make sure you let them know you noticed. Write a handwritten thank you note, give them a special gift card, and take time to recognize them publicly. To make an even bigger impression— send their spouse a handwritten note sharing how important they were to the team’s success.

Appreciation goes a long way, and as you incorporate a culture of gratitude, your staff will reciprocate that appreciation through loyalty and a job well done.

6. Be Willing to Get Your Hands Dirty: The most successful leaders won’t ever ask a team member to do something that they aren’t willing to do themselves. People in general acquire much more respect for leaders who aren’t afraid to jump into to accomplish any task needed.  

This doesn’t mean you’re doing the work for them, but at those critical moments when help is needed, your assistance can help motivate your team to reach—or even exceed—the goals set.

7. Mentor Your Team Members: If you can help your members to become more successful, the whole team will benefit. The more you invest into your team members, the more they will be willing to give in return.

As you lead by example in a mentorship role for those in your organization, others with similar skills and capabilities will follow your lead. This creates a culture where current and upcoming leaders develop a mindset of helping others succeed.

8. Bond Through a Social Cause: To lead a team effectively, you need to be a part of the team. Start a new social cause as a team-building activity and make sure you lead the way.

To add even more lift to your leadership, adopt a charity to support within your local community and get away from the office where you can get to know your team members on a more personal level.

9. Let Your Team See You Learn: Leaders are learners. Let your team observe you reading a book or a trade publication in the break room, and encourage them to do the same.

You could also start an optional book club focused on self-improvement and leadership books where you can discuss how those books have made an impact on you, and how they helped change the way you lead.

10. Keep Meetings as Short as Possible: Everyone generally has a list of tasks and duties that take up their entire workday. Although necessary, meetings can be seen as disruptive and non-productive, especially if nothing was essentially accomplished.

Meetings should have a specific purpose and agenda that involves everyone in the room. Therefore, the more you respect the time of your team, the more they will respect you as a leader. You will lift your leadership.

Improving your capacity to lead is something that will take intentional effort, and these tips will help you focus in on what matters most.  Your attention to detail is sure to be rewarded in the form of enhanced loyalty, higher respect, and increase the success of you, your team, and the overall organization.

Elizabeth McCormick is a Keynote Speaker specializing in Leadership, Sales and Safety presentations. She was recently named number four on the list of Leadership Experts to Follow Online.  A former US Army Black Hawk Pilot, and author of “The P.I.L.O.T. Method; the 5 Elemental Truths to Leading Yourself in Life;” Elizabeth teaches instantly applicable strategies to boost your employees’ confidence in their own leadership abilities. For more information, please visit: www.YourInspirationalSpeaker.com.

Elizabeth McCormick

Avoid Leadership Pitfalls: Direction Versus Speed

On a Fast Train to the Wrong Destination?

By Elizabeth McCormick

Elizabeth McCormickHave you ever had a day where your wheels spin a bit slower? Have you noticed your team not putting the usual miles in at the office? Could it be burnout? The need for a vacation? Or is there something more underlying the malaise?

Many have experienced a much bigger drag on resources by giving the orders for your team to take off flying at full speed, only to find out later that the course was in the opposite direction of your desired goal.

Then, there are other times when a project is well underway and everything seems aligned properly, but there’s just no lift. The wheels just won’t leave the ground. Although tasks are getting completed and checked off the list, there’s no altitude allowing the project to accelerate. What’s happening? When started with a laser-focused goal in mind, the direction can change quickly if the proper guardrails and benchmarks aren’t set in place to keep everyone on target.

There’s a world of advice on staying productive, but those activities don’t mean anything if your coordinates are off, and that may be one of the biggest wastes of time (not to mention energy drains) you and your organization could experience. Assume nothing, clarify everything, and have it in writing. Click To Tweet

Here are five tips to assure your leadership and team directives match the end result you envision.

1. Know Your Destination: When you begin with the end in mind, you have a distinctive vision of your desired direction and destination before instructing your team to launch. It doesn’t matter how big or small your project is—if the direction, intention, or desired outcome isn’t clear, it will be tough to fly your team to the dream. Assume nothing, clarify everything, and have it in writing. If some aspect is open to interpretation, close that loophole up, or better yet, ask your team to contribute to the ownership of the project by being open to their quest for clarity.

2. Engage Your Team: Once you have communicated the objectives to your team, start by having team members re-state the goals and desired outcomes in their own words. Confirm and clarify often. This quite naturally highlights any variance between intention and perception. You can also use this opportunity to start fleshing out the project, brainstorming with the team, and adding detail to the project. This type of activity will help jumpstart the comradery as your team begins working together as a team toward a common goal. This will also enhance the collaboration necessary to ensure proper communication can take place from beginning to end.

3. Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan: Once everyone is on board and the team is headed in the right direction, be sure you have established the proper safety devices, benchmarks, and signposts for you and your team, so that if there is any drifting off course, it will be recognized and realigned quickly without much time or effort wasted. Ensure that work is broken down into manageable, measurable, short-term goals to aid in motivation and increase productivity. Work organized into logical segments also aids focus and self-management of direction.

Complex projects lend themselves to digressions and diversions. Spelling out where you should be and when keeps efforts centered on the essential goals originally intended.

Another way to encourage motivation and productivity is to take the time to get to know your ‘flight crew’ and their strengths. Don’t randomly dole out tasks; be strategic in aligning tasks with specific gifts and skills, allowing team members to take ownership of their part of the project.

4. Own Your Results: As a leader, it’s your attitude, stamina, direction, commitment to the project, and work ethic that establishes the environment and culture of your team, as well as the success of your project at hand. If you are unclear of your destination, you can be sure your team will have a tough time understanding the purpose of the project and the directions you are trying to communicate.

One of the biggest reasons people drift, get distracted, and are taken off task, is that the purpose for their task isn’t strong enough to keep them engaged. If this is happening, recognize it, take some time to clarify your purpose and your destination, and then let your team know you wish to communicate better as you share your vision more clearly and effectively with everyone involved.

Sometimes the best of plans just don’t have the results intended. It happens. Maybe it was due to misinformation, miscommunication, not enough research, too many agendas, a drastic change in the economy, or an unexpected shift in trends to name just a few of the ever-changing facets of being a leader in business. Regardless of why it happened, own the results. Empower your team to help you assess what went wrong, develop the proper benchmarks and guardrails to prevent that from happening again, and then map out a new flight plan to a better destination.

5. Collaborate—Share Your Progress: For most people in corporate positions, there’s (hopefully) an effective boss who helps ensure there are proper reports on progress, with the responsibility to follow up. What happens, though, when you’re the boss? Who does your project most effect, and who needs to know about the progress of your company, your goals, and your overall destination—your stakeholders? Your staff? Your clients? Other departments?

Regardless of who your project affects most, it is important to communicate, collaborate, and share your progress. Your strategic plan very well could be a thing of beauty, worthy of a business textbook. The marketing department, however, may have new information that invalidates an initial premise or puts your data out of date. Informing them only at completion risks the success of your entire project. Or, your biggest clients may be ready to sell their business and retire, which now means your project underfunded.

Include progress updates to those who your plans will impact, so that changes can be incorporated along the way. Sure, detours are inconvenient, but navigating them minimizes backtracking and maximizes the effectiveness of your efforts.

Leadership On Course and at Full Speed: With the direction of your project embedded in the planning and with contingencies made for changing conditions, you’ll soon see that the extra work in project planning serves productivity. When the runway is clear, your direction is plotted, and your flight plan is filed, you and your team can attain top speeds as you soar to success.

Elizabeth McCormick is a Keynote Speaker specializing in Leadership, Sales and Safety presentations. She was recently named number four on the list of Leadership Experts to Follow Online. A former US Army Black Hawk Pilot, and author of The P.I.L.O.T. Method; the 5 Elemental Truths to Leading Yourself in Life; Elizabeth teaches instantly applicable strategies to boost your employees’ confidence in their own leadership abilities. For more information, please visit: www.YourInspirationalSpeaker.com.

Elizabeth McCormick

Be a Force Multiplier

Accomplishing More with Existing Resources

By Elizabeth McCormick

Elizabeth McCormickThe U.S. Department of Defense defines “force multiplier” as a capability added or employed by a combat group that significantly improves their combat potential, enhancing mission success probability. A force multiplier could be anything from new weapons technology to fresh food in the mess hall; anything that perks up and improves the effectiveness of our world-class armed forces.

The Challenge-Discernment in Using Resources: In the general workforce of corporate America, problems are many times solved by throwing resources at it—time, money, and effort. However, that’s not always the wisest course of action and much of those valuable resources could end up wasted. For those trained in the armed forces, their approach is different. Due to their training and experiences, their ability to enhance the effectiveness of the existing resources they have at their disposal is really the key behind the phrases about working smarter—not just harder. The Force Multiplier is always thinking in terms of strategy and implementation. Click To Tweet

The Solution-Force Multipliers: Incorporating the unknown elements and outcomes of a new strategy can sometimes be met with trepidation since it usually requires people to embrace the unfamiliar. However, with force multipliers, the foundational elements are usually already known and what changes is an updated strategy or reconfiguring other correlated elements that will inevitably improve its overall effectiveness and result.

Here are six multipliers you can explore and implement to help you work smarter:

1. Technology: To be most effective in both business and life, the ability to react is necessary, but being proactive and taking initiative first is where you will find the battle is won. Certainly, when you look to the likes of Apple or Facebook, their proactive stance on new technology leverages into a significant force multiplying advantage. This tech might be the defining force multiplier of your time. However, technology is moving into a plateau period where everyone has access to technology, balancing the playing field. There will always be innovative products. The game changers that propel things forward, but most of us aren’t engaged in enterprises that rely on innovation in that way. 

Instead, the force multiplier looks at technology and determines how its use extends effectiveness, for the multiplier themselves or for members of their team. A sales manager may, for example, implement an app that provides field sales staff with past ordering information for clients quicker. Field sales use this information to respond proactively during client calls. Effectively using the capabilities of smartphones has come a long way since the era of the revolutionary briefcase-sized cell phone.

2. Data: The smartphone example underscores the importance of data. On the battlefield, it’s called intelligence, reconnaissance or simply knowledge of one’s own numbers of personnel and hardware capabilities. Having complete and accurate information multiplies the chances of effective decision-making. Knowing where an enemy is, their numbers and the weaponry under their control permits an accurate and measured response, rather than sending blunt forces in the enemy’s general direction.

Consider the sales manager again. There’s no sense sending field sales into a suburb when they sell industrial cleaning products. It’s a simple example, but without knowledge of a region as suburban, effectiveness is diluted. 

3. Collaboration: Delegation is one way to use human resources, and that is essential. In traditional hierarchical organizations, that top-down direction of management is typical. It’s also quite rigid. Information and innovation typically follows that hierarchical pattern as well.

The contemporary world shifts to collaborative work groups largely due to the lateral spread of information that the computer age grants. Length of service with a company no longer describes experience with information or tech. Therefore, information is shared laterally as well as hierarchically. Multiple-pronged communication becomes more natural and, for the Force Multiplier, more critical to success.

4. Psychology: The most obvious psychological force multiplier is of course morale. Positive morale motivates a fighting unit in precisely the same way it boosts the efforts of a workplace team. Shared vision unifies effort and provides natural group cohesion.

Negative morale divides teams. In military terms, propaganda is a tool used to negatively affect opposing forces, which can counteract a number of factors that might otherwise aid the enemy’s advances.

While bringing down competition may not be a practical goal in the business world, bolstering the positive and avoiding the negative in work groups is critical function for the force multiplier.

5. Strategy: The Force Multiplier is always thinking in terms of strategy and implementation. Effective leaders take the knowledge of what resources can accomplish through tactical means. As the other aspects of force multiplication take effect, plans adapt to the increased capabilities. For instance, with the right tools and training, a sales team of three can increase sales in an area where six used to simply maintain current levels.

6. Leading by Example: Becoming an effective force multiplier means constant attention to improving your own skills and knowledge. When you start asking more from others in your organization, you better believe they’ll be watching you to lead the way. They know that you can’t be in the trenches with them all the time, but they need to know you can get your hands dirty and are willing to serve beside them. And of course, demonstrating that is a force multiplier technique.

As you become more aware of your force multiplier capabilities, you will realize that it’s almost a lifestyle choice with far reaching implications. Better still, force multiplication inherently implies continual improvement—of yourself as a leader, of your systems and of your team. Rather than something that’s overlaid, continuous improvement naturally emerges from the force multiplier process.

Elizabeth McCormick is a keynote speaker, author, and authority on leadership. A former US Army Black Hawk Pilot, she is the best-selling author of her personal development book, “The P.I.L.O.T. Method; the 5 Elemental Truths to Leading Yourself in Life.” Elizabeth teaches real life, easy to apply strategies to boost your employees’ confidence in the vision of your organization and their own leadership abilities. For more information, please visit: www.YourInspirationalSpeaker.com.

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Elizabeth McCormick

Practice Makes Perfect? Busting the Myth

By Elizabeth McCormick

Elizabeth McCormickSometimes, there’s nothing worse than having it all figured out. You’re doing it day in and day out, and have been doing it for so long now that it’s second nature. You don’t even have to think about the mechanics of it. You know the phrases. “I can do this in my sleep,” “with one arm tied behind my back,” “flying on autopilot.”

But what if there is a better way?

They say that practice makes perfect. That is a myth and all kinds of wrong. What practice makes is permanent. What you do, day in and out, defines who you are and determines your results. There are reasons why you want to feel competent at what you do, reasons why you want and need activities you can do on autopilot.

These are the things that, through daily repetition, people practice. But, in fact, the act of doing something over and over doesn’t ultimately move anyone toward perfection. It leads into a point of permanence, where you do what you do the same way, every day. If it’s not being done perfectly from the outset, it’s not approaching perfection. Be wary not to habitualize the mundane.

Do You Have All the Information? You will encounter those who, good intentioned or not, stand in your way. They may block, misdirect, or withhold key information. Without this, of course, you can’t perform at an optimal level. You may not even know what that level is, or through omission, know how to arrive at the destination.

It could be something as simple as a single instruction, or it could come through a fundamental lack of understanding. This is where you need to trust your gut. When you know the outcome isn’t what it could be, don’t be content to meet that outcome. Ask questions. In particular, ask why. Why is it done this way? Why are you not addressing that process or concern?

One of the drawbacks of experience is that those second-nature elements lose their resolution and the details fall through the cracks. It may simply be an overlooked key point that you are no longer consciously thinking about. When something doesn’t make sense, it’s probably because that linking element is missing. Recognize your doubt as a sign of an incomplete picture and chase down the piece you’re missing. Get it right before making it permanent.

The Comfort of Learned Knowledge: There’s a reason people fall on the familiar, that they practice what they always practice. It’s comfortable. It’s meant to be comfortable. It starts in the physiology of their brains. Those things you know, that you’ve been doing for a long time, exist in your brain as established neural pathways. When you perform familiar tasks, these pathways kick in and take over.

By contrast, learning new skills happens elsewhere in the brain, in the same part where emotions live, where the fight or flight response originates. New situations are stressful. It’s what puts your brain up at the top of the consciousness chain. Faced with new stimuli, you process, analyze, deduce and ultimately solve or contain the problem you are facing. As the process progresses, that knowledge becomes hard wired. You practice your responses and make them permanent.

Consider a toddler experiencing a candle for the first time. The dancing flame delights them. Their learning skills are based around senses. They see the flame and instinctively they want to touch, taste, smell, and hear the flame. So, they reach for it.

You know what’s going to happen, right? Of course, you do. You’ve built those neural paths and you’re quite comfortable with keeping your hands a certain distance from flame. The toddler, however, is amassing knowledge and has not yet connected the flame with pain and danger. Burned once though, and that information is hardwired immediately, amidst significant turmoil and trauma, depending on how badly they were burned. Thereafter, the toddler retreats to the comfort and safety of avoiding flames.

Increased Comfort and the Learning Process: You can’t move close to a seemingly hopeless deadline without distress. People practice their emotional states too, whether they go deliberately or not, working towards its permanence. This is why you feel uneasy about a forthcoming exam in school, no matter how well you know the material. Talk around the cafeteria creates the impression that exam time is high-stress, and when students commiserate, they reinforce their own distress.

Yet, once you’re familiar and comfortable with information or methodology, it’s increasingly difficult to feel that distress without something triggering the emotional state. Learned responses are stored in a different part of the brain. As you process new information, it’s tied physically to an emotional response. After learning, it’s hard wired away from emotions.

That’s where the cool, calm “do it in your sleep” feeling comes from. You’re supposed to be more comfortable with familiar tasks. As you know, comfort is good, but it’s also complacent and often unexamined. It’s practice making permanent in a literal sense. Your brain hardwires your response.

The Illusion of Perfection: If you’re not obtaining perfect goals, that doesn’t mean that everything you’re doing is wrong. It may mean you’re missing a key piece of information as you saw above. There may be something off in your process or timing, but it’s very unlikely you’re a complete failure at what you’re doing.

When you feel that unease, that discomfort from not achieving your vision of success, your brain is actively seeking new information, solutions to the disparity between reality and vision. It’s a normal part of who you are.

You decide what you do with that feeling. You can ignore it. Perhaps you bake cookies or binge watch five seasons of Game of Thrones or apply yourself to other parts of jobs or duties that don’t cause distress. Or you face the unease, looking for the piece of the puzzle that unifies where you are with where you want to be.

You learn through repetition. Some people need to do something 100 times before they construct the synapses necessary to move knowledge and skill to that comfortable part of their brains. Some, hateful though they may be, need only five repetitions. Many need 5,000 repetitions, most of the time, at least for the things that matter, the things that don’t come so easy, yet be desired so much.

Sometimes that’s how close success really is. You may be just one piece of information or one more moment of perseverance away.

Elizabeth McCormick is a keynote speaker, author, and authority on Leadership. A former US Army Black Hawk Pilot, she is the best-selling author of her personal development book The P.I.L.O.T. Method: the 5 Elemental Truths to Leading Yourself in Life. Elizabeth teaches real life, easy to apply strategies to boost your employees’ confidence in the vision of your organization and their own leadership abilities. For more information, please visit www.yourinspirationalspeaker.com.