In the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re doing a deep dive into the 3rd component of the Personal Brand Framework: your Behaviors + Actions. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!
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The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: A Deep Dive into Behaviors + Actions
We just launched our new book! You can grab The Power of Your Personal Brand: A Playbook for Struggling Middle Managers Who Want to Do Big Things on Amazon or at ForthRight-People.com
In the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re doing a deep dive into the 3rd component of the Personal Brand Framework: your Behaviors + Actions. Behaviors + Actions are how you show up and engage in the world around you. They’re how people experience you. They’re manifestations of your Characteristics. And, though we say it is very difficult to change your Characteristics, you can control your Behaviors +Actions. In fact, you must, in order to achieve your Big Things. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:
- Behaviors and actions are how people experience you
- Reframe struggles as data, not personal attacks
- Once you understand the “why,” you dial characteristics up or down, don’t change who you are
- Being strategic about where you spend time and energy
- Using a personal mission statement (“I want to be known for…”) to filter and guide behaviors
And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.
Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:
Show Notes
- The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: A Deep Dive into Behaviors + Actions
- [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [00:52] Behaviors and actions are how people experience you
- [03:19] Reframe struggles as data, not personal attacks
- [06:35] Struggles trace back to characteristics misfiring in a given context, not something wrong with you
- [08:50] Coaching example: a leader struggling for respect because he treated his team like friends, driven by wanting to be liked
- [10:43] Coaching example: a new CEO struggling with networking and small talk, valuing deep connection over transactional relationships
- [13:01] Once you understand the “why,” you dial characteristics up or down, don’t change who you are
- [16:34] Reframing relationships in tiers and finding an authentic way to build connection as CEO
- [20:55] Being strategic about where you spend time and energy
- [23:15] Using a personal mission statement (“I want to be known for…”) to filter and guide behaviors
- [25:14] Example mission statements in action: “respected by my team” and “providing immediate value”
- [28:29] Understanding your natural tendencies and the patterns that reveal where you get off track
- [32:15] Example: getting triggered by disappointing people, and preparing for hard conversations in advance
- [34:42] Example: triggered by meaningless conversation, but learning to identify the right people and situations
- [37:29] Recap: behaviors/actions are the manifestation of characteristics
- Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
What is Strategic Counsel?
Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.
Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.
Transcript
Please note: This transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Council by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it.
00:29
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel Podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going continue our series, The Power of Your Personal Brand. So this series is based on our new book, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. And today we’re going to take a deep dive into the third component of the personal brand framework, your behaviors and actions.
00:52
Now, you’re wondering about the other two components, your characteristics and appearance, those were covered in previous episodes. So you may want to take a listen to those as well so you can have the full picture. Yes. And behaviors and actions are how you show up and engage in the world around you. In other words, it is how people experience you. And your behaviors and actions are manifestations of your characteristics. Though we say it’s very difficult to change your characteristics, the thing you can control and change is your behaviors and actions.
01:22
And actually, we also say you have to in order to achieve your big things. caveat, not in a manipulative or inauthentic way. We mean in a way that is still powerfully connected to your personal brand for consistency and authenticity. All right. So that’s the game changer, you guys. So hopefully your ears perked up because you’re like, well, how do I do that? Well, that’s what we’re going to tell you today. So let’s deep dive into your behaviors and actions.
01:52
Okay, so we just kind of give you a little bit of an overview where behaviors and actions sits in the personal brand framework, but we’re just going to like nail it down. So you guys have that framework as we’re going into this discussion. So you have your characteristics. Those are your features, your attributes. hear me and April talk about this all the time. It’s your values, your beliefs, your points of view, your experiences, all those things that make you you. You also have your appearance, which is your visual and verbal presence. Collectively, when you put all that together, that makes up your image.
02:20
And then you have the behaviors and actions, which is what April just described. And that’s really how you show up and engage with the world around you. So this is how you conduct yourself or how you act to achieve an aim. And that’s what we’re going to deep dive in today. But I always like this quote from A.G. Lafley, because I think this really puts a nice kind of just metaphorical context to what behaviors and actions really mean. So he used to always say, and he probably still says that, but is that execution is the only strategy the consumer sees.
02:50
And so this is like your behaviors and actions. So this is what people are seeing and how they’re experiencing you. And so this is their first impressions. This is their ongoing impressions. And if they don’t really know you well, they start to associate those impressions with who you are at your core, who you are, your characteristics. So it’s really important that you represent your personal brand in the way that you want it to represent it. So you’re starting from your characteristics and then they are manifesting into your behaviors and actions.
03:19
so that you can be intentional and you can actually do it in a way that’s gonna help you achieve your big things. Yes, yes to all of that. And the piece here that we always tell people is so important is that, and I’ll pick up Anne’s word, that this is data as you take a look at your behaviors and actions. what we find is that when we first assign an analysis of behaviors and actions to people through a variety of exercises and homework that we do,
03:48
there is a layer of defensiveness because the reaction is emotional. And so what we encourage people to do is to very quickly put that emotion aside. Not easy, but that’s what you kind of have to do to say, okay, if I’m showing up and I’m not getting the reaction I want, or I’m showing up and these people don’t seem to understand me, that is true data to then help you take a step back and say, okay, those things aren’t working for me.
04:17
and then go through the process of reevaluating some other characteristics perhaps you have in your toolkit that would help you show up better in those situations. But the longer you sit with your emotions, the longer it’s going to take you to get over the hump of making the adjustments that are needed. Yeah, I think that’s a really super important point and one that we continue to reinforce because that is a mindset shift that really needs to happen in order for you to really embrace the competitive advantage of your personal brand. So when these things are happening, especially when you’re in that middle manager,
04:47
middle manager struggle, which we’re going to get to in a second. The first thing you start to feel is some level of like anxiety over maybe you feel like an imposter, you feel like maybe you’re not as good as you thought you were, you’re not, you’re wondering why what got you here isn’t getting you there. And all those feelings as April saying, start to kind of like coalesce and you start to get all these doubts, right? And when that starts to happen, it starts to kind of spiral you down.
05:13
but also what happens is that what you’re doing is you’re internalizing the feedback that is actually something personal about you, but really the feedback is about your behaviors and actions. So that, as April says, that’s the data part. That’s like, oh, somebody saw me show up here in this way and this is how they’re internalizing it. Oh, well, that’s not what my intent was. That’s not how I wanna show up. So why am I showing up in that way? What is motivating me to show up that way? So I think…
05:41
That’s a really big, fantastic concept of being able to kind of figure out, okay, putting some space in between these things and not automatically thinking that when somebody says something about you, that it’s a personal attack on your characteristics. It is a reaction to your behaviors and actions. Is that fair to say, April? Yes. And I would just put the end point on this and say, if you’re brave enough to ask people for the feedback and they are kind enough to give it,
06:08
Make sure you internalize that and then as Anne said, put it to work versus worrying that it’s a knock against your character. You are detrimental or how am going to recover from that? Or this is how what people really think about me and all of those sorts of things. All right. That’s a fantastic point to which to drop off from to this next point, which are struggles or diagnosed in your behaviors and actions and trace back to characteristics. Yes, they are.
06:35
It’s exactly what we just said is that when somebody like feels like they’re in the struggle, they think that there’s something wrong with them. That’s what we just talked about. And they feel like they have these detrimental weaknesses that they’re never going to be overcome. But the truth is, as we just said, the reason why you’re struggling is because your intrinsic value or what you think you’re putting onto the table that people want isn’t matching what actually people want. And these people, and generally in this case, are your valuator.
07:02
Value evaluators, this is who you care about. These are the people who are holding the keys to your big things. Well, we’re not gonna get into this episode about who you should listen to and who you shouldn’t. Maybe I’ll be trickled through, but that’s a whole nother episode. But just think about the people that you really, really care or you need to care about what their perception of you is in order to unlock your big things.
07:24
And so the really important point here that we just reinforced, but it’s really important to reinforce again, because we’re going to kind of like I said, diagnosis it. There’s nothing right or wrong here. So how your characteristics are manifesting through your behaviors and actions, they’re just not working in this situation. That’s the data. Cause remember characteristics, they motivate your behaviors and actions. They’re the why they’re there. Why you’re doing what you’re doing. And that’s what you have to really start to kind of break down. That’s the diagnosis.
07:54
But here is the clincher, you guys, and we see this all the time. Your characteristics are neither good nor bad. All right? They’re just either helping you on your patch of your big things or they’re not. So again, we’re in a diagnostic state. We’re in the data state where we’re like, hey, something just happened. Why am I showing up in that way? Why are people reacting to me in that way? And what do I want to go do about it? And that’s an internal process. This is when you start looking inside. So.
08:23
That’s what you want to do. You want to start to talk. You want to start to think about OK and being curious and inquisitive about that and then work it back inside. So mean April thought the best way to really to exemplify this is to kind of take you through a couple of our coaching clients. We’re not going to say names or anything like that. So if you’re listening, this could be, you know, if you were one of our coaching clients, this could be many, many, many, many of you. OK, so we’re not taking picking on anybody specifically.
08:50
But you’re going to hear some of these themes as being consistent themes across leadership. Or even a combination of things. Or even a combination of things. OK. Not here to call anybody out, certainly. Right. We’ll do that. We’ll leave that for the sessions themselves. Right. OK. So one of my coaching clients was a leader who was struggling to get respect from his team. OK. And when we diagnosed the why, again, the behavior and action is
09:19
He’s doing these things and I’m not gonna go through all the details of basically what he’s doing, but you can just kind of imagine, but he’s not earning any respect from his team. And when he kind of went back and he was like, why is that happening? Why am I getting that reaction? It was observed that he was approaching his team as they were like his friends or his buddies. And the reason for that was that he was once one of them, then he got promoted and this happens a lot, right? Where…
09:45
kind of in the team and all of a sudden we get promoted and all of a sudden we are the leader, the manager, the boss of that team. So it makes him now very uncomfortable to tell them what to do, as he put it. He’s like, how am I supposed to transition from somebody that was in the team to what telling him now what to do? But interestingly, that’s what his team is looking for him for as being the manager and leader. So when he is like in this space of friend buddy, he’s not being able then to drive that respect that people are needing or in that leadership that people are needing.
10:15
for him to kind of guide that business. Now, the other thing that was also working, not working for him here, again, not good or bad, just not working, was that he also has this characteristic of like wanting to be liked or people pleaser. So it’s no wonder that he was really struggling with this new position, with this kind of this combination of context and his characteristics. Okay, so my example is a leader who I’ve worked with that has a hard time
10:43
putting herself out there. And what I mean by that is new role, and this is a lot of times like, you we’re giving two new role examples, but this is an instance where we often do have people come to us needing help and advice, right? Because it’s something they haven’t done before. So as the new CEO of this company, it is now her responsibility to build a presence and her thought leadership to support the future vision and success of the company overall.
11:09
However, on a fundamental level, she has a hard time picking up the phone and calling or reaching out to reinvigorate her personal network. And then to compound that, she just really isn’t into small talk. And so the characteristic at play here is really that she values those deep, meaningful relationships over the transactional ones and certainly over self-
11:36
And so in this instance, the thing we’re trying to figure out, right, is in this new role, there’s new expectations and understanding that characteristic about herself so that we can devise a strategy to move forward. Yeah, I think that’s a really good one too, because it just totally exemplifies that, you know, the what got you here is not going to get you there. And a mindset shift that needs to happen, be like, you know what, there’s nothing wrong with you. You just have to switch.
12:05
your characteristics in order to be able to play in this new world, right? And have the self-awareness to know that this is just something that’s in you, like we’ve said, neither good nor bad, but that you have to find a way to put yourself forward that feels authentic and also addresses this new need in the role of CEO. Yeah, I think that’s really good because that’s a really good then segue into the next point, which once the why is understood, so
12:34
why is this happening? You need to go back into your characteristics so that you can modulate or change your behaviors and actions. So once you figure out what characteristics combined with the contextual awareness, so that’s like what is going on around you. Like we just talked about the new, is there new players? Is there a new position? Is there a new like total job? Are you in a new industry? Like all that contextual awareness is gonna cause you to rethink.
13:01
how am I showing up and is how I’m showing up effective and or do I need to make these changes? So once you kind of like embrace that, you can then determine how you want to modulate your characteristics through your behaviors and actions to change whatever perception or form, whatever perception you want. So here’s the key and April alluded to this. This is not about changing who you are.
13:27
It’s about being intentional and how you’re showing up so you can be more effective. This may mean you have to dial up or dial down characteristics or even pull new ones from your characteristic repertoire. Some of these have been characters that’s been dormant for a very long time. Some of them we haven’t really exercised. Some of them we haven’t even like considered or tried, but they’re in there. Or some of them haven’t been helpful to date and now they are. Oh, that’s a very good point too.
13:55
Right? So some of these, you know, so you could go back down internally and explore and bring those forward. And so we’re to go back to our example so we can continue the story about then how our coaching clients were able then to do this in order to change perception and show up differently with their behaviors and actions. So we talked about his characteristic of I want to be liked, is it good or bad? That’s not, I mean, in situations where he’s meeting people for the first time, I mean, it works really well because
14:22
He’s super observant about how people are feeling and tries to meet them where they are. a really good characteristic in that situation. But in the situation when he needs the respect and he needs that more than being liked, you hear me and April talk about that all the time, leadership is about being respected, not necessarily being liked. This characteristic wasn’t working at that level, right? It needed to be dialed down and he needed to dial up a different characteristic.
14:48
So as we kind of coaching him through this, it’s like, hey, what else is in there? What can you pull upon? Because we’re not telling you to go down a persona and be like somebody else and show up with somebody else’s characteristics in order to make that work. We’re looking inside because everything you need to be successful is inside. We guarantee you on this. So when he was going inside, he was like, you know, I do have a really, really strong belief that I want to do what’s right by the business. Like that’s a really good one.
15:14
So that starts trumping his need to be like, because when he starts thinking about what is needed for the business, then the whole characteristic of being friend, buddy, isn’t as powerful as needing to do what’s right by the business. Because the overarching goal, especially when you get to this level and this leadership level, is to show up more in pursuit of the business versus your individual contributions. Now the thing though is we didn’t tell him to throw out.
15:43
being a quote unquote people pleaser or wanting to be like, because that’s, it’s not like I said, it’s not a detrimental piece of who he is. And that’s what we want you to really hear is that there’s nothing wrong with that characteristic. And in fact, it plays a nice good guard rail because it helps keep him in check. It’s like he doesn’t go too far the other way, right? So he kind of uses that as like just the criteria check of like, okay, I still wanna be,
16:11
you know, like my people, don’t want to be like alienating my people. So let me make sure that in my desire to do what’s right by the business, I’m not alienating my people. Well, and I think what you said about the fact that he is so perceptive or maybe I don’t know if perceptive was the word that you used, but his ability to meet people and see them and kind of react was my internalization of what you said. He still has to do that so that he still feels
16:40
relatable and familiar to those people. Because your point, if he swung so far the other way, they would be like, who is this person showing up today versus like him refocusing on the business, which as you said, is what they need and want from him. But he still feels like a person that cares about them and they want to be around for that reason. Right. It’s still an authentic place to play. Right. And it’s not trying to be somebody you’re not. It’s just being very intentional.
17:10
that the goal here, especially in leadership in general, and how you get people to follow you is by having people appreciate the experience of you. Your personal brand is the experience of you. And so the intent is to develop that in pursuit of what your people need, not necessarily what you need. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of leaders make, especially struggling mental managers in this place, is they still are operating from what they need, not
17:38
in showing up as the leader that their people need. Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So to go back to mine, somewhat of a similar thread here. Okay, so meaningful connection was important to her, is important to her, right? That’s powerful. That’s a good thing to want out of life. And of course, our deepest relationships. However, those types of relationships have to be built over time. And we also have to recognize that not every
18:08
relationship we have gets that status. And so we had to sort of reframe relationships in her life across professional and personal, but then also that recognition of you have different tiers of relationships, right? Or as a friend and colleague of mine used to say, it’s like you have the nucleus and then you have radiating rings out, right? And everybody kind of holds a different position. So we had to really reframe, okay.
18:35
how do relationships look just as human beings and what can our expectations be? And then we had the discussion and worked through and she agreed that part of being CEO is that presence and the ability to show up for the business and what it needs and that the aspiration to be the CEO and the ability to take on that role, again, requires something different from her than the previous role that she had. So we had to
19:04
take it to a more objective place and develop a message, track and approach that helped her feel like she would be able to create connections up to her quote unquote standards. And by that, mean, I’m not sure we could ever get her to a place where she enjoys small talk. I don’t think that that’s like in her. So we were able to say, okay, well then we’re not really gonna go that route.
19:28
But what you should do, for example, is if you’re gonna go and you’re gonna meet with someone that you haven’t met with in a long time and you’re trying to rebuild that relationship, look them up and get to know kind of what they’ve been into that’s beyond the how’s the weather or how do you feel about summer ending or whatever those things are that didn’t work and ask more meaningful things. Oh, I saw that you’ve transitioned roles over the years. Talk to me about that, right? And so for her, she was able to lean into that need for truer connection.
19:57
acknowledging that they don’t always have to be big ones and then creating meaningful interactions for both her and the party on the other side. And I think the important thing about this is, and you’ve heard us say this, and you’ve heard me say this, I hate fake it till you make it. It’s the opposite of what we’re talking about here. So with each of these situations and individuals that we work with, we’re trying to find ways to bridge what they can do as people with a unique set of experiences and characteristics.
20:27
with what the situation or new role or whatever requires of them and help figure out the right sort of recipe of that, not telling people to go act away until they feel comfortable in it. Yeah, and or ignore the fact that you need to actually do that in order to be successful, which is what people do, right? So I mean, I think that’s excellent coaching. So I think what’s also important in in in this kind of situation, because networking and small talk in
20:55
I mean, that just drives even an extrovert crazy to some extent. And it could be really hard and it could be really exhausting, especially if that’s an expectation of the role is that whole concept of being there for a reason. So when April was talking about the message tracking, it’s not just a random message track. It’s like, I’m here for a reason. here for I have a goal. have an intent.
21:21
There’s certain people maybe that I want to meet. There’s certain people I want to have a conversation with. I’m not just here randomly like making friends right now. You might go to social ones and you are there to randomly make friends. But the thing that I say, and I think you bro agree with this, is you should never go to a networking event that your customer, your consumer, your client, a colleague, or somebody you’re trying to build relationship is not. You should never go so they should be there. So if you want, so your intent to go is to because you’re meaning to make connections with.
21:51
strategically make connections with customers, clients, consumers, colleagues, future mentors, future people are going to be ambassadors for you, supporters for you. They’re with an intent. So then the small talk just becomes a bridge to something more important versus the like constant chatter of the conversation whenever you switch to somebody new. So I was just going to add that to sense.
22:16
Well, and we talk all the time about, the two things that you can control are your time and your energy. And I was just in this conversation on a LinkedIn forum yesterday about something similar. And my comment, being in the right rooms and my comment back was, yeah, because we only have so much time and energy. And if we waste those two things on places we’re not meant to be, then we don’t show up the way we should in the rooms we’re supposed to be in. Yeah. I think that’s a really, really good point. All right.
22:45
The next point that we want to dive into with regards to your behaviors and actions is a really important one and that’s using your personal mission statement to guide and keep you accountable. Right, so personal mission statement, it’s in the book, it’s in the workbook. If you want to cheat and just jump to the workbook and see what it is and work on it, you can do that. You can just download that from our website. But the book goes into a lot more context. But the personal mission statement is simply, it’s a small statement and it’s to finish this beginning here, which is,
23:15
I want to be a person who is known for. So then you fill in the blank. And just to give credit where credit is due, I got this from Tom Bilyeu, he’s successful entrepreneur. He has his own podcast impact theory, but we like it because it’s simplicity and it’s just easy to internalize. So this is supposed to be, like I said, a very short statement, so it’s easy to recall and it serves as a filter for your behaviors and actions. So when you’re going into a situation, you use it to say, okay, if I want to show up this way,
23:45
then how do I need to be? What characteristics am I gonna put into action? We didn’t talk about appearance in the context of this, but we told you it’s part of the personal brand framework. What’s my appearance, my visual and verbal appearance need to look like? And then after you in the situation, you use it as the filter of like, okay, did I successfully deliver upon my personal mission statement? And you can go through that process there. And then that’s how it you to be, acquire that data of,
24:14
Did that work for me? Did that situation, that moment, did that work in order to achieve what I was going into achieve or not? Right? And then this will help you kind of diagnose that. And it’s okay if it’s an is not because again, these are tools that we’re putting into place and things that we’re developing for ourselves that we have to then put into practice. So the other piece we say is don’t get discouraged if it’s not perfect. The point is that you went and tried it and that you’re going to learn from it.
24:43
and continue to move forward, not to just be like, well, that didn’t go well, and then get upset or down on yourself. Right. learning, like you said, learning from it and then fixing it too. Yeah. What are you going to do next time that’s different? Yeah. Or even fixing that situation. If you knew you were like really operated outside of what you want your personal brand to show up and being, then it’s your opportunity to go fix it in the moment. So it doesn’t become a consistent way that you’re showing up. And I’m going to get to that in the next point.
25:14
All right, so my example, so my leader’s personal mission statement, I want to be a person who’s known for being respected by my team. All right, it’s simple, but it’s super effective because it helped him make sure he was doing what was best for them, not just for himself, right? So that was his context kind of going in. It’s like, I want to be a person who’s respected by my team. So how do I need to show up? Again, is it pulling in that context of the business? And in some cases it was,
25:41
being an advocate for his team with management. So there’s lots of things that went into that outside of the previous context that we gave you. So, but it became the way that he really kind of looked at the situations that he was going into. But then also when he was done and he could get feedback on this very, very easily, right? Did I earn the respect of my team today? Well, and I liked that it was one simple change really, right? Like the characteristic is I want to be liked, the change that should be respected.
26:10
Mm So I think that’s really good. Yeah, thousand percent. OK, and mine is I want to be a person who is known for providing immediate value to everyone I meet, including new contacts and introductions. And so, again, I already spoke to the misconception that this wasn’t possible given the deep relationship need, but this has now switched it to.
26:35
value, which was defined through that message track and point taken in on like it wasn’t just random message track and there’s nuances depending on who you’re trying to talk to. But the point was, okay, at the crux of it, she wanted to be thought of as a person who provides value and that that can be big things and small things and that was able to get her over the hump of that adjustment. that reframing opened the door to the possibility that then allowed her to show up consistently and authentically.
27:05
in her own way and still provide what was needed in the new role of CEO. Yeah, I like that one a lot. Again, I mean, these are just accountability trackers, right? You can even share these with people, right? And say, hey, people you trust, it’s like, this is how I want to show up going forward. Let me know if I’m consistently showing up in this way or not. Right. So, I mean, if it works for.
27:30
lots of people in order to have that accountability track, it can feel very, very uncomfortable at times, but it definitely helps to have somebody else who is kind of in it with you watching and giving you that feedback. Well, and I think too, we talk about, and every person is different. We’ve talked about how everyone’s their unique recipe, but if you are brave enough to be vulnerable and let people know that you are very intentionally on this journey of figuring out your personal brand and how to best use it,
27:59
for yourself and then like Ann said, ask them to participate in it. That can be super helpful because it actually takes pressure off of both sides. So you heard me say before that it can be, it’s not maybe going to be perfect the first time that you go and do it. But if you explain to people that you’re working on it and you’re really trying to show up differently, although authentically, then it takes the pressure off of both of you and allows for a meaningful dialogue that maybe wouldn’t happen otherwise. a thousand percent.
28:29
Not everybody’s comfortable doing that and I can appreciate that. But if you are, it can be helpful. Hey, work for Ray Dalio. I sure did. All right. Our next point here about behaviors and actions is you have to understand your natural tendencies in your triggers. All right. What do we mean by this? And again, we go into this in the book and a whole lot more depth as well as the workbook. So if you want to the fast track that you can go into the workbook and it’ll give you this exercise in order to really deep dive into this. But
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Tendencies in your triggers, okay? So are there certain people or types of people who just like cause a reaction, right? Are there certain things that people say or do? Are there specific environments or situations? Like I was saying, know, in a lot of situations in this new context, you have to behave differently, but they can make you very, very uncomfortable. So are there situations or environments that kind of trigger you or that have you naturally
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default to a certain behavior or action? Are there specific expectations, schedules or deadlines when people’s anxiety kicks in, usually that causes some sort of reaction? Or are there specific reactions to feelings? Like when you’re nervous, what happens when you tend to get nervous? Like when I get nervous, I overshare. So there’s things that can happen and you can kind of see the patterns.
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And that is the important thing to kind of become very aware of because the thing is here, and this can get really tricky, that what April said, like consistency builds trust. It could be consistency in either any way, right? So it could be consistency in a positive way that builds that trust you want in a positive way to reinforce it’s your personal brand. It could be consistency and not effective ways.
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And when people start to see that consistency, they start to believe that’s who you are. That’s who you are at your core. Those represent your characteristics. And so you have to be very intentional that you create some of that space in the way that you’re showing up and the way that you are. And that is by realizing, hey, when these certain things happen or I interact with certain people or even not even certain people, but maybe certain people’s characteristics. This is what happens. This is what my natural tendency is based on this trigger.
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Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just a whole nother level of preparation and self-awareness. And I think the trigger piece is another one that we always encourage people. And you said some of this, but just to reinforce the point to start to look for patterns where you just can’t get over the hump no matter how hard you try and how much you know your characteristics and all of that. You just keep running up against the same thing. I think if you can identify the trigger,
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you can prepare a little better and or sometimes opt out of situations if that’s a possibility. It’s not always a possibility. Yeah, and you can kind of reconnect, you know, those little neurons in your brain that if you know that these situations are going to drive you nuts or, you you can start to trigger your brain to think of different things in those situations. Like, OK, if I know I’m going to feel nuts, I’m going to think of my happy place. Yeah. And I’m going to take three seconds before I say anything.
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or I’m gonna make a very intentional point not to roll my eyes. So certain things that you know you do, you start to become more aware of that and you can start to practice that. So- I always say my face has subtitles and- It certainly does. Yes, and I’ve worked very hard not to let that happen, especially when I know I’m in a room of people that have a lot of self-awareness. That does not help. Maybe one of these days I’m gonna do the different pictures and I’m gonna-
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put the actual subtitle underneath it and then I can share it so everybody will know. No, don’t do that. You can share it with me. Don’t blow my cover. Oh yeah, because it’s really hard to tell. So like just to kind of finish out this story here of the leader that I was coaching, he was really triggered by disappointing people, which shouldn’t surprise anybody if he’s a people pleaser and wants to be liked. So if he thought
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non-popular decision was going to irritate people or make them upset. He always hedged and this was part of the respect thing that he was having difficulty getting. so this, this further like really, really like exacerbated that issue. But once he realized this, this trigger was able to better prepare for these hard conversations. So April’s like talked about her client who did the message tracking. It’s a very similar thing here. It’s like, you have to be a little strategic.
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When you know you’re going to go into these situations or these conversations, you just don’t go in and wing them. You practice them. You think about how you want to say it. And ultimately, you know, it’s never going to go perfectly as April said, but you at least have some reps. It’s a visualization, whatever it’s going to take for you to go in and be able to be the competent leader you need to be in these conversations. Yeah. Well, and I think too, going back to the combination of characteristics and not ignoring
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one or putting it aside when it can still be useful. I’m a big fan of something like, Hey guys, I know this is going to be an unpopular decision, but it’s been made based on the inputs I received from you and what the business ultimately needs. And as the leader, I decided blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like, it’s not just like delivery, like it doesn’t put all the onus on the person to be like, I know I’m to go in, it’s not going to be what they want. So I’m just going to,
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deliver the tough information knowing there’s going to be blowback. If you can set the stage appropriately and even like you said, do some things beforehand, right? If you need to like, I’m always like enlist a person that will be reasonable in the room and let them help you or like there’s all kinds of other things that can be done so that it’s not just, I have to figure out how to deliver this hard message because I want to be respected and this will build respect. It’s not as black and white as that. So do think about what will also help you feel comfortable
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in the situation because that always helps you show up more authentically in the long run. right, right. So mine, I mean, this isn’t going to be a shock. My leader was triggered by meaningless conversation because it made her feel uncomfortable and like she had nothing to bring to the table. So then this made her want to not tackle this new part of her role. However, now that she knows about this and like we said, has the right tools to overcome it, she’s meeting people that value the same things.
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and can also easily suss out the ones that don’t. So that is the other interesting thing about doing this work that we’ve talked about through the entire episode and then culminating in like, okay, this is gonna trigger me. When you do the work, we actually find that it helps you live in a more objective place so that when you’re in a situation, you can evaluate whether these are.
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for example, your people or like Ann said, if it’s someone that you know is gonna trigger you, you don’t roll your eyes, like all these different things. But the belief and the things that we’ve seen is that when you do this work and you really have that strong understanding, it starts to bring the right people and experiences to you. Because again, you’re showing up in the way that is the most right for you or the most natural. Right. And I think, I mean,
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kind of going back to the very beginning where we said, the power of this is so that you’re always consistently showing up authentically as who you are because donning a persona is never the answer here because that is just going to lead you down to passive frustration because personas always blow up. Yes, exactly. too hard to continue to maintain on an ongoing basis, right? So why not pull from within?
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But that also means being able to have very real conversations about yourself. Again, it comes back to the self-awareness and the situational awareness, looking at it as data, being so you can go back and you can do what you need to do to be effective in the conversations and in the moments and relationships and the experiences that you want to have. Because remember, the whole goal ultimately is to achieve your big thing. And so if that big thing is your why is you’re guiding
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star and all those things, it should be big enough that motivates you to want to take on this work. So ultimately, that’s the bigger why when we talk about personal brand and why your personal brand can be a really powerful tool. It’s that. It’s totally that. Absolutely. So let me just capture the points of behaviors and actions again. And again, like I said, want to even a deeper, deeper dive, get the book. It’s all in the book. It’s all in that workbook.
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So as we talked about, know, behaviors and actions sits in that third component, the personal brand framework. It is the manifestation of your characteristics, also working through your appearance. So your behaviors and actions definitely work in combination with your appearance and that creates your image and your reputation and how you show up. Your struggles are diagnosed and your behaviors and actions and trace back to your characteristics. It’s because remember your behaviors and actions are things that you can control. Your characters are really hard to change, but
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Once you understand that why, you can modulate your behaviors and actions by pulling up other characteristics or by dialing up and dialing down characteristics in order to be more effective in these situations. And then use your personal mission statement to be your guide and help to hold yourself accountable. It’s a really great way of being able to be consistent in the way that you’re showing up and then leveraging that as a way that people can provide you feedback and kind of keep you
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I said accountable to, this is how I want my personal brand to manifest. And then getting that feedback in order to reinforce it as indeed the truth. And then understanding your natural tendencies and your triggers. So these can get you off of your personal brand very quickly. And if you’re consistently showing up that way, they will be detrimental because people are gonna start thinking that is your personal brand. That’s really hard to undo folks. I’m gonna just tell you that from experience.
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So be intentional here, realize that every situation we go into is pleasant and we’re human, so we can’t react perfectly in every single situation. So be intentional here, put in those counter measures if you need, fix any messes. All right, with that, I’m gonna say go buy the book, it’s available on Amazon.
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or through our link on our website, forthright-people.com. Again, that is the power of your personal brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. And with that, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put into practice. Remember, strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, forthright-people.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business.
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And make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Council on your favorite podcast platform.