Tag Archives: leader

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FFP 042: Three Ingredients to a Better Self

The Future Focused Podcast: Episode 042 "Three Ingredients to Your Better Self"

In this episode of The Future Focused Podcast, I discuss three important ingredients to your better self.

Getting better does not happen accidentally; it takes intention and some effort. Most people focus on dieting, lifting weights, reading books, budgeting, investing and other important areas, but overlook these very three “doable” daily actions. The results are immediate.

Click here to listen to this episode. 

Knowing the three is NOT enough. I want you to hear why you need them and how to put them to use.

Jump in this podcast 14 minute podcast. Lean into what I am sharing. Put it to use.

Show Notes:

This link will take you to ALL of my social media: https://linktr.ee/kellycroy (I love Link Tree.)

Want to give your child or a child you know the gift of confidence and tools to tackle worry and anxiety? Order my new book Unthink Before Bed. It is a children’s book on mindfulness. It’s the perfect gift and bedtime book. I am so proud of it! It is a very fun read.

Kelly Croy is an author, speaker, and educator. Want to learn more? Send an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 188 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader a book on personal and professional leadership, and Unthink Before Bed: A Children’s Book on Mindfulness for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

 

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FFP 036: Patience and Tenacity in Leadership

In this episode of The Future Focused Podcast I breakdown how patience is not a force of opposition to tenacity but rather fuels it. You’ll learn how to build patience to fuel, better execute actions with tenacity to become a better leader at home, at your job, and in life.

Tenacity is one of the six core elements of leadership, but it is fueled by patience. Patience is a skill that can be acquired and built. I’ll show you how in this episode.

Patience is one of the greatest skills we can learn as a leader.

Thank you for taking the time to listen. Thank you for being a leader. I hope you will share this out and reach out to me.

Stay safe and healthy friends.

You are a leader. This is our time. Our best days are ahead of us, not behind us.

Kelly

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Future Focused Podcast.

Kelly Croy is an author, speaker, and educator. Want to learn more? Send an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 160 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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5 Things You Need to Lead Your Team in Uncharted Territory

Every day I hear people use words like ‘unprecedented’ and ‘uncharted territory’ to describe our current global pandemic and the crisis it has created. I do not question the accuracy of these descriptors, but we cannot allow them to become excuses for inaction. While we may truly not know ‘exactly what to do,’ we know we must provide leadership, whether in our home, of our self, our organization, or community.

This must be a time of compassion, understanding, and forgiveness, both in others and of ourselves. The challenges upon us are real, varied and dire. We need to assume everyone is doing their best. We must empathize and realize every person’s challenge, situation, mindset, ability to cope, and resources are all different.

This is not a time to be selfish; be selfless. This is not a time to seek profit; serve. This is not a time to hustle; help.

While the 6 core elements I wrote about in my book, Along Came a Leader, have served me well in life: Attitude, Wisdom, Communication, Tenacity, Vision, and Authenticity, I wanted to provide leaders some insight on how to help their team during this tough time. Here are the 5 things I believe leaders NEED to lead their team in uncharted territory:

1. Vision: Leaders need to provide their team with a compelling vision of what the outcome could be if everyone does their part. The vision needs to be realistically optimistic, but a bit grand in some ways too. Everyone needs something to look forward to in a crisis. Everyone needs clarity and direction. Everyone needs a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Without a vision, a team meanders, stalls and becomes lost in the crisis.

2. A Good Crew: Hopefully you have built a great team but during a crisis even the best need coaching and professional learning. Clarify your expectations. Deliver accurate feedback. Provide opportunities and resources to help them to continue to grow and improve. Columbus could not hire a new crew in the middle of the ocean during the many trials on his exploration to discover the New World; he had to coach them up each and every day.

3. Flexibility: You have to roll with the punches. You have to get back up after getting knocked down. You have to adjust and adapt your plans and procedures. The way you did things before a crisis worked for that time and situation; they may not be appropriate now. Reflect, evaluate, test, execute, and continually adjust.

4. Tenacity: Have you ever seen someone freeze or just shut down in a time of crisis? Tenacity is not something we are born with, but rather something we build. A crisis demands tenacity and so does leadership. I live in a state of permanent beta. I am always trying to improve myself. It is something I admire in others. I not only expect to make mistakes, I understand they are paramount on the journey to success. They are the feedback we need to achieve. Be relentless. Celebrate failures. Keep getting back up and trying.

5. Attitude: Without the right attitude in a time of crisis you are lost and helpless. It is the single most important quality of a leader. It is the single greatest characteristic of success. It is the antidote to a crisis. Your attitude is contagious. Those you lead become infected with the way you approach the crisis. An awesome attitude is one of the most impressive and admired traits of exceptional leaders.

I do not write these words with ease nor approach our crisis lightly. My heart is full of admiration for our nurses, doctors, first responders, and all of the many essential workers providing all we need to keep the world running. My heart aches for the sick and all that is yet to come.

I fully understand that what lies ahead will be tough, trying and at times bleak, but I know that leadership, personal and professional, is the requirement of all, as we stand in the shadow of a crisis. It is leadership that will get us, and those we love and care for, through it.

Neither a book, a course, nor a title makes you a leader; action does!

I hope this post provides you with some assistance during these tough times.

Wishing you great health & happiness, peace & prosperity, and love & laughter.

Stay safe and healthy.

Stay away from one another.

Kelly

Kelly Croy is an author, speaker, and educator. Want to learn more? Send an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 148 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

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FFP 030: Seven Tools for the Leader’s Mind

In this episode of The Future Focused Podcast, I share seven tools for the leader’s mind.

We have tools all over our house. We have tools to cook, tools to make repairs, tools for our electronics, and we even have tools to work on our bodies. All of these tools help us to do things better. We have tools to help us in every place in our lives, but one area that most feel they lack tools is our minds. We need tools to help us think better. Today you’re going to be given seven awesome tools that the legends of leadership utilize to level-up and make a difference.

Our minds are powerful tools when we know how to put them to use. They can solve any problem and help us achieve any goal when we utilize these tools. Without the proper, mental leadership tools our minds can work against us and make us its prisoner. If you are seeing success as a leader you are most likely already applying some of these tools.

Listen here.

I also hope you will sign-up for my newsletter. I am giving away a free tool called The Leadership Matrix. It will allow you to identify where you are strong in leadership, and where you need to improve. To get the tool, all you need to do is sign-up for my newsletter, but this offer expires soon.

This episode will help you become a better leader.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy week to level-up your leadership and design a dynamic life.

You are awesome!

Kelly

Kelly Croy is an author, speaker, and educator. Want to learn more? Send an email. • Sign-up for Kelly’s Newsletter. Listen to Kelly’s other podcast The Wired Educator Podcast with over 148 episodes of interviews and professional development. • Order Kelly’s book, Along Came a Leader for your personal library. • Follow Kelly Croy on Facebook.  • Follow Kelly Croy on Twitter.  •  Follow Kelly Croy on Instagram 

 

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FFP 005: What Does It Take Today?

What does it REALLY take to be successful?

Everyone wants to know the answer to the question, “What does it take to be successful?”

Too few people, I fear, actually ask themselves this question, and even fewer try to discover the answer.

In this episode, I share my thoughts on how to better frame this question, and offer you some insight on how to make significant progress in achieving your goals. I’ll explain: why you need a proverbial “leg day”, how to make sure you have the advantage of an end-of-year review statement on yourself, the questions you really need to ask yourself, and offer up some advice on some things you really need to stop doing.

(Remember to leave a review of this podcast for a chance to win a copy of Kelly’s book.)

Mentioned in this podcast:

My favorite read from last year: The Daily Stoic.

Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck, and his new book, Crushing It! will be out this month.

The Tim Ferriss Show Podcast by Tim Ferriss

The Focus 3 Podcast by Tim and Brian Kight

A book mentioned by Terry Crews, The Master Key System.

And many updates on my book Along Came a Leader, and my speaking.

Kelly Croy

Inspirational Speaker & Performance Artist

www.KellyCroy.com

Click Here to email Kelly. 

1-800-831-4825 

Should I hire a coach? Yes, but only if you can afford it. You can accomplish much with the right resources. (If you are interested in working with me as your coach this year, please send me an email.)

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One Simple Change for a Lifetime of Results: The Kaizen Way

Kelly Croy Productivity Speaker Writer Artist kaizen

The Kaizen Way is a concept that I believe can dramatically impact your personal and professional life without stress, guilt, and anxiety. It’s simple and effective. It leap frogs fear and procrastination and gets results. 

I recently asked a friend if he had any resolutions for the new year and he replied, “Yes, I plan to do one push-up a day.”

I smiled, knowing there had to be more to the story, and I asked, “One? That’s a bit small isn’t it?”

My friend then introduced me to the concept of the Kaizen Way. He explained to me that when he gets down on the floor to complete his one push-up for the day that he always does a few more than just the one.  He doesn’t overthink what he has to do. He doesn’t worry about how he is going to fit three sets of forty pushups into his schedule, or anything like that.  He just gets down on the floor and does his one push up aiming for improvement.  It’s simple. It’s neat. It works.

This is a new area of focus for him. He doesn’t already have a massive amount of upper body strength, so doing some pushups every day of the year will be a big boost. The word “kaizen” is the Japanese word for improvement. It was once poorly applied in the workplace as forcibly making employees discover and apply constant improvement, all the way from the head of the company down to the newly hired, to a point of creating a work environment of stress and undue pressure. Kaizen, or constant improvement is a great concept, but I like my friend’s version better because it eliminates the stress and allows the participant to self-assess and reflect on how deeply to apply the improvement. This contemporary version of The Kaizen Way is personal and enchanting. In essence, the Kaizen Way asks you to take one small step each day to make an improvement in your life. 

I decided to try this concept of the Kaizen Way in my own life. You see I own a guitar, but I do not know how to play it. I have always wanted to learn. I have thought about lessons, and books, and YouTube videos, and other educational tools, but success always eluded me. 

Why haven’t I been able to learn anything on the guitar? Easy.  I haven’t really tried. The process itself stops me cold: get the guitar out of the closet, take it out of the case, use the tuning app on my iPhone to tune it, start the lesson, practice, put it all away, etc. No wonder I have never learned even a little bit of how to play the guitar. The key of course has been to simplify the process and redefine what I need to do.  Yes, this is a mind trick. 

This year I applied the Kaizen Way to my desire of learning to play the guitar. I decided I would learn to play just one chord a day. Just one chord. That’s it.  Guess what happened?  In a matter of a few weeks I have learned a couple of chords! They aren’t the greatest sounding chords in the world, but it is more than I have learned in my entire life of owning that guitar due entirely to my friend’s simple explanation of this Kaizen concept. 

Screen Shot 2016 01 27 at 5 15 47 PM

I took the guitar out of the case and keep it in plain sight. I have to walk by it now. I see it, I grab it, and I play a chord. I have actually never played just one chord; I always play a few. It’s working. I don’t set a timer or anything like that. It’s a carefree exercise that is building a habit of improvement and it’s enjoyable and relaxing. That’s really the secret; the Kaizen Way builds habits. It simplifies the process, leapfrogs the fear, and builds positive habits without guilt. 

Setting goals and making plans is great. There are many places in our life for rigor. Sometimes, however, we need to relax and apply small bits of improvement without the anxiety of multi-step procedures, timed intervals, and measured improvement. 

Imagine if we all took one very small action each day to be a better neighbor, a little more productive at work, or to read just a page of a book. Well, don’t just imagine it, apply the Kaizen Way to your life and see how it works for you.  

If you would like to learn more about how to apply this concept to your personal and professional life, grab a copy of the book, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer.

(Note: A thank you to Michael Matera for introducing me to The Kaizen Way.)



Kelly Croy 

Speaker, Artist and Educator

Invite Kelly to speak at your event!

www.KellyCroy.com 

info@kellycroy.com

1-800-831-4825 


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Five Steps to Building Leadership in Your Organization

Fill in the moat KC speaker motivate team

Low productivity and morale can surface within any organization, and it’s really not that difficult to get everyone back on track. Every workplace is different, and there isn’t always a one-method-fixes-all solution. In this post I’m offering five great techniques to implement to get your organization from complaining to leading.

1) Show You Care: If you want to end morale issues in your organization and build leaders, then you need to build a rapport with your team. When you show your team kindness, that you care, and develop a genuine and consistent rapport, morale issues will fade. In its place, you will find team members looking out for one another, representing your agency with pride, and leadership at every transaction. Show you care.

2) Provide Leadership Opportunities: A lot of people read leadership books, watch clips on leadership, and talk about leadership, however, they don’t always put to action what they’ve read, heard, or discussed. If you want your organization to be full of solid leaders, you have to provide team members with leadership opportunities.  That’s right, you have to give them the authority to lead. You can’t expect a perfect outcome either, and I suppose that’s why a lot of people are afraid to let others take the lead on a project, but that is what it takes to build leaders, genuine opportunities and responsibilities. You can always sit a distant second-chair or check-in and let them know you can mentor and counsel, but you have to allow real opportunities with real consequences. You will be happy with the short term results, and you will be elated with the long-term impact on your organization. Provide leadership opportunities.

3) Take Action: The biggest morale buster in any organization is when committees are formed, meetings are held, and surveys are taken and then there is no follow-up or action.  It’s frustrating.  You might as well send a handwritten note to each member saying, “I don’t care what you think.”  Yep, it’s that bad.  If you ask for someone’s feedback, honor it.  Even if you can’t provide what they’ve requested, let them know that the feedback was important and it helped shape the outcome. Let them know they are important. When they offer feedback that you don’t like, don’t go to their supervisor trying to “get to the bottom of it” and smear some make-up over the blemish. Be thankful that they were honest and upfront. Don’t surround yourself with people who only tell you what you want to hear.  Leaders take action.

4) Reward Solutions: You will find what you look for, and when you reward it, it will grow. If you look for team members leading and making solutions to problems you will find them, and when you reward them with praise and recognition you will see this type of behavior grow and spread. Recognizing others is one of the most important actions of a leader, and recognition is also one of the most fun. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to recognize either. A small personal touch can go a long way and screams, “You are awesome! We are so lucky to have you!” Others will notice and lead similarly. Reward solutions.

5) Fill-in the Moat: There cannot be a moat between administration and staff. There is no them. If your organization feels that there is a separation of employees, there will always be complaining and morale issues. Just because you say there is no separation, doesn’t mean there isn’t a separation. Get to know your team. Listen to them. Your organization needs to adopt a team leadership model that clearly outlines what everyone’s job is to benefit the team, not themselves. When everyone understands they are a contributor and feels like they are a contributor, and especially when they are recognized as a contributor, morale begins its upward swing and all areas begin to shine again. Shrink the separation between team members.

When you work with a team, and when you make building leadership a priority, you will see morale improve, productivity rise, and problems decrease. In times of accomplishment, leadership made the difference. In times of strife, a lack of leaders is the culprit. Always work on building a culture of leadership.

Kelly Croy 

Inspirational Speaker & Performance Artist

www.KellyCroy.com 

info@kellycroy.com

1-800-831-4825 

 
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A List of The Most Influential Books to Read

I love to read.  I’m one of those people that has more books than I have time, yet I always reserve a portion of my day for reading. Reading is my workout for my brain. 

I have a stack of books that I am looking forward to reading later, a list I am reading now, a wish-list of books to checkout and I am always adding to my “books to read” list in my journal from the recommendations of friends and people I admire.

I am thankful for my middle school English teacher, Mrs. Romick for providing me with a list of books that made me fall in love with reading. I am thankful for my mother for being a great model of the importance of reading. I am thankful for my father for surrounding me with good books. Books change lives.

I wanted to share with you a list of books that I believe are life-changers. I have read every one and recommended them to others many, many times. Perhaps you can add them to your list or order a copy as a gift for a friend. Books are wonderful.

Here is a list of some of the most influential books in my life: Click to Read More