Have you ever dealt with burnout at work affecting your health and your relationships, and ultimately your performance at work? Have you ever thought about your work and your career in terms of your personal mental safety? I examined five safety critical professions: Truck Driver Emergency Room (ER) Doctor Law Enforcement Airline Pilot Firefighter They mandate 42% to 67% downtime. E.g. Firefighters work 48-hrr shifts followed by 96-hrs off. Maybe you have a flexible schedule, but you may be left wondering,  ‘Am I really working enough?’  ‘Or too much?’ This matters because not all work feels like work . . . How you decide what ‘work’ is, has as much to do with your gut and your heart as it does with your scheduling and productivity tools. The old world values working all the time; values Saturday as just another work day; and world only values you if you're suffering. In the new world, we recognize that if you burn yourself out at work, absenteeism and turnover goes up. Now do this differently:  Track your achievements.  Make it measurable and repeatable.  Follow your plan, but follow your heart, too.  Don't let yourself crash.

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What counts as Work?

Have you ever struggled with coming up with a strategy that your team would follow?   Well, here are the ten steps to build a kick-ass strategy! #1:  The first step when you're building out a great strategy is, gather up your team. #2: Get a whiteboard and lots of colorful markers. #3: Gather up your Post-it®  notes and your Sharpies®. #4: Hand out the Post-it®  notes and Sharpies®..   #5:  Define the future goal. #6:  Define the celebration. #7:  Ask your team, ‘What do we need to do right before the goal?’ #8:  Continue working back step by step:  Ask the question again,  ‘What has to happen before that?’ #9:  Then start connecting the tasks with your whiteboard markers. #10 Assign responsibilities and resources: Building from the end to the beginning allows you to pull the need from the end, building ‘lean’ into the process. Now you can transfer this to an online strategy map and you actually are able to track it using MS project or whatever project management software you want.   When you facilitate you will have disagreement sometimes.  That’s ok!  Facilitate and remember to take your time to finding a future state.   This is Rocco Luongo.  Go to www.GoRocco.Pro for more.  Go YOU!!! 

Build a Kick Ass Strategy

Have you ever struggled with feedback and criticism?  I think that we all have.   Sometimes that feedback or criticism comes from friends, family, colleagues, or from the internet.  Well, I sure have. Here's what I did when I got some puzzling criticism online.  

Feedback and Criticism

Here's how you build growth in to your plans, gaining you the confidence that a process and a framework provides, with enough flexibility to let you be you.

Build Growth In

Hi everyone Rocco Luongo here, welcome to Thoughtful Leadership.  Have you guys ever struggled with running out of energy before the day is over?  What tends to follow when we run out of energy?  We probably start making some bad choices.   Imagine your battery indicator dropping throughout the day and then start realizing that,  "I am getting to 0% battery before my day is over."  How do you react when you realize that your battery is low?   Allow yourself to take the time and to recognize that you have human needs and be a good steward of the human body that you inhabit.  Imagine that you’re a pilot, that has a schedule which says when you’re going to take off and land.  That's your job, but the real job is to do it safely.  A pilot is supposed to maintain his or her timeline, but more importantly, a pilot is supposed to get you there safe.   It takes energy to go in that gap between stimulus and response, and to make a good choice; not to be impulsive and reactionary, but rather to have your words and your action to be the smart output of a thoughtful process. If your battery is on low, you're going to tend to be more frank.  You're not going to tend to be more tactful.  You're not going to tend to be more diagnostic.  You're not going to tend to be more peaceful and stoic, or more open to suggestion. If you feel like there's a lot more day left than you have energy in the tank, be a smart pilot, and avoid that storm. Suppose you realize that your battery is too low?  Get yourself a power block to recharge.  Whatever works for you. Go to the cafe, go to the gym, go do yoga. I rarely become a jerk, but when I do, it's almost always because I overextended myself and I have not let my actions, to be the smart output of the thoughtful process.    Why does this matter?   We're trying to break the pattern of our behavior being an impulse. You won't get to a new place using your old methods. DO: 1)   Think about how much energy you really have left in your tank, and compare that to how much you have left to do. 2) Try to see if that are you “losing-it” at that same time every day. 3)  Let time work for you.  Time does not have to be against you. 4)  Remember it takes energy not to be a jerk.   DON'T: 1)  Don't be immune to the good work others have done; reach out to an advisor, mentor, or coach. 2)  Don't continue down the same path if you're heading for a crash.   3)  Don't let yourself down to 0%, just don't do it. Here's the key takeaway:  Save some energy for good manners and be a good pilot for your body; don't let yourself crash.

Save Energy for Good Choices

What can you learn about stress from a piece of silly putty? Give a listen and find out! Hi everyone, I’m Rocco Luongo. I studied engineering in New Hampshire then moved to Germany. I learned that every engineer has to be a leader. My small team quickly grew . . . and I didn't speak the language. I learned how to connect with people. 85% of how we communicate is nonverbal. There are two key definitions of stress:  1. “Pressure or tension exerted on a material object.”  2. “A state of mental or emotional strain or tension.” Silly Putty belongs to an interesting class of materials (viscoelastic) that serves as a good example of how stress affects us. If I slowly pull Silly Putty, it will stretch, but if I stretch it quickly it snaps. The strain rate matters. Tips: 1. Recognize that you can do this.  2. Reach out to a loved one or a trusted advisor. 3. Don't let time pressure get you down. Common denominator: Recognize that our perception of time is the key to how we react to stress and that we often put a false urgency on ourselves and our actions. Thanks very much for your time. Please subscribe!  Check out GoRocco.Pro. Go YOU!!!

Silly Putty and Stress

Podcasting from the beautiful Pacific Northwest – home of tech giant Amazon, massive volcanoes, and a striving start-up culture -- this is “Thoughtful Leadership”, a weekly podcast about improving leadership in measurable and repeatable ways. Yes, this is the place to learn how to be a better leader without forgetting that our love and our heart reside at the center of all we do. Hosted by: incurable entrepreneur, multiple patent-holding engineer, and 20-yr tech leader -- Rocco Luongo!

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Thoughtful Leadership

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