Although, I believe that mine is the only Coaching model built around these three questions asked on a daily basis, the truth is the origin is not even within the coaching world. You see, in my past life I was a pilot in the US Navy. And I believe I have brought to the coaching industry, the most powerful learning tool that Naval Aviation uses - the Brief / Debrief process. And I've developed them into a tool that any one can use to make a real difference in their life, their job or their business.
Over the course of the past nearly 100 years, Naval Aviators have had to learn skills faster than most are use to and have had to learn their skills where even the smallest inattention to detail can cost lives.
Standardization, systems and consistency aren't just buzz words, but mantras that define flight operations around an aircraft carrier.
So as I began looking at how to best help individuals and small business grow and achieve their vision, I turned to my roots - my roots as a pilot, and brought forward the concepts that I lived every day for 20 years.
The "Three Daily Questions" are in fact built on the questions that Naval Aviators face daily. And applying these three questions every day to your life can have a dramatic effect on how you live your life every day, and help you achieve your dreams in ways you never thought possible.
Yesterday, in Part One of this three part article, I focused on the first question, "What three things worked for you today?", but today the focus is on the second question.
What three things didn't work for you today?
Before going too far, let me remind you that I define "working" as those actions or thoughts that helped you achieve or get closer to your goals or desired outcomes.
Truth is, as beneficial as it is, most people don't want to face the things that happened during their day that "didn't work" for them. First, they want to just put the things they perceive as "bad" out of their head and move on. And second, because we all tend to personalize the issue, we really don't want to feel like a failure at the end of the day.
We would all rather just go to bed and forget the day than have to face it.
Putting them out of your head doesn't make them go away.
Just because you don't want to face the things that didn't go well for you that day or that you "feel" bad about, they don't go away. In fact what it does is almost guarantee that you will face those same struggles again . . . some day in the future.
So the essence of question two is to help you face what happened and figure out exactly what you can learn from those struggles.
You have to forgive yourself before you can learn from your past
Unfortunately though, as much as you may want to, there is nothing you can do to change the past - I'm sorry. It's over and done with. So before you can learn from our past, you must work on forgiving yourself - letting go of regret and anger / frustration with the current outcome.
If you don't forgive yourself, you will not only have the burden of your mistake, but you will find a way to punish yourself this time, but also many times over in the future - causing 100x more damage than the original misgiving created.
You can wish your past was different, but it ain't gonna happen.
Everyday, we look at our past, see things we could have or should have done differently and we dwell on it. We blame ourselves for those errors and live in pain and regret in the present because of it. But, to be honest, you might as well live in pain and regret today over the holocaust or slavery as well, because, there is as much you can do to undo the tragedies as you can your own mistakes.
Get over it RIGHT NOW, so that we can move on. The good news is that "all growth actually takes place in the future, the only realm of living you actually have control over.
Learn from the past, live the present and define the future.
So instead of punishing yourself for your past - accept it as it was and figure out what you can learn from it. How can I change my circumstance today, so that you never see that situation again. How can you influence the way I think so that when the same events unfold in the future (and they most likely will), you won't make the mistake again - you will instead see the handwriting on the wall and do something (whatever you decide) differently.
This isn't easy to do, but that's where our process kicks in, looking at each day, each week, each "any time frame / event" and deciding facing what worked first, what didn't work, and then what you can do better next time. It gives you a systematic way to look at everything in your life a little bit differently - giving you tools to make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today.
Join us tomorrow when we go further into the final question of the Three Questions That Will Change Your Life - Every Day. The third question is build on the premise that incremental daily growth is the only truly successful way to make permanent dramatic change in any environment.
Showing posts with label Briefing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Briefing. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Make Sure Tomorrow is Better Than Today
Yesterday, I talked about Briefing and the power it has to shape your day. But Briefs are only half the story. Briefs make what ever you are getting ready to do better. However, if you want to make everything you do even better tomorrow than it was today, then you must first reflect on what happened. And you must, as much as possible, do it as objectively as you can. In the world of Aviation, we gave that reflection a name - the Debrief.
If the Blue Angels are the masters (in my mind) of the Brief, then Top Gun is the gurus of the Debrief.
In Naval Aviation, our budgets are cut more each and every year - forcing us to figure out how to do more with less - something I wish more people in the Government should be trying to do. As flight hours and training time gets the biggest slash every year, our entire community has focused on making sure that we get every bit of training we can from every flight. To do this, Naval Aviation, led by Top Gun, has perfected the Debrief.
What is a Debrief? It's little more than systematically reviewing an event (or an entire day) and finding "Goods" and "Others" that you can take away as lessons learned.
What's a "Good" and what's an "Other"?
A "Good" should be obvious - it's something that you did well that day - something that worked for you in the course of doing what you briefed you were going to do. While an "Other" (in the true politically correct sense) is those things that didn't go quite as well as you had planned they would go - literally things that didn't work for you in the course of the event or day.
Now, in any given event (or day), you could probably find 100 things that were good, and 100 that didn't go so well. But, since most of us (especially Pilots) have short attention spans, let's keep the list of each to 3. Yep, I don't care how well your day went or how poorly it went, the key to a Debrief is finding 3 of each - every time.
So, after your event / day is done, sit down and take 10-15 minutes to reflect on your "Goods" and "Others". Write them down and if you are really bold, review them as part of you next Brief. This will help you keep your "Goods" happening and increase the likelihood that the "Others" won't happen again. Or you will at least make an effort to correct them.
If you have any questions or comments on Briefing and Debriefing, please leave a comment. I look forward to what everyone thinks.
If the Blue Angels are the masters (in my mind) of the Brief, then Top Gun is the gurus of the Debrief.
In Naval Aviation, our budgets are cut more each and every year - forcing us to figure out how to do more with less - something I wish more people in the Government should be trying to do. As flight hours and training time gets the biggest slash every year, our entire community has focused on making sure that we get every bit of training we can from every flight. To do this, Naval Aviation, led by Top Gun, has perfected the Debrief.
What is a Debrief? It's little more than systematically reviewing an event (or an entire day) and finding "Goods" and "Others" that you can take away as lessons learned.
What's a "Good" and what's an "Other"?
A "Good" should be obvious - it's something that you did well that day - something that worked for you in the course of doing what you briefed you were going to do. While an "Other" (in the true politically correct sense) is those things that didn't go quite as well as you had planned they would go - literally things that didn't work for you in the course of the event or day.
Now, in any given event (or day), you could probably find 100 things that were good, and 100 that didn't go so well. But, since most of us (especially Pilots) have short attention spans, let's keep the list of each to 3. Yep, I don't care how well your day went or how poorly it went, the key to a Debrief is finding 3 of each - every time.
So, after your event / day is done, sit down and take 10-15 minutes to reflect on your "Goods" and "Others". Write them down and if you are really bold, review them as part of you next Brief. This will help you keep your "Goods" happening and increase the likelihood that the "Others" won't happen again. Or you will at least make an effort to correct them.
If you have any questions or comments on Briefing and Debriefing, please leave a comment. I look forward to what everyone thinks.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Apply the Success of the Blue Angels to Your Life
As a pilot, before every flight, we "Brief". Sometimes those briefs were "brief", but more often than not they were anything but. However, whether they were quick or drawn-out, we prided ourselves in our professionalism and our ability to prepare ourselves for the flight.
Our briefs would prepare us for the flight. They covered everything we expected to do from take-off to landing. They also covered everything that we didn't expect to do - like emergencies and contingencies. I won't lie to you, some were better than others at briefing and preparing - and the truth be told, it almost always was reflected in their airborne success.
But nNo pilots, that I've ever met, Brief better and more thoroughly than the Blue Angels. If you think their flying is amazing, then you should witness one of their briefs. For about 45 minutes, the entire team flies the show in their mind - in unison, to the calls of the "Boss" (Blue Angel #1). Their hands move together - as if they were almost tied together with invisible pieces of string. Each team member responding as if they were actually in the air - flying their machines at 500 mph, just 36 inches from each through full acrobatics. Truly a lesson we can all learn from.
The lesson that is truly empowering to everyone that applies briefing to their repertoiret is mental preparation. In fact, this form of preparation before an event does two beneficial things for any who use it:
1. Briefing grounds us in the proper attitude - getting us focused on the job at hand and helping us clear our mind of distractions.
2. Briefing forces us to think through each event - before we live it - actively engaging the subconscious mind in our goals before we call upon it to assist us in our endeavor.
I've heard many people say that things are created twice - first in the mind, and then in reality. What briefing does is make the first part, the mental preparation, a planned event that you can count on.
So how can you apply this to your business - to your life?
It's simple really - every time you get ready to do something, brief yourself and your team first. You see this in many instances in successful businesses, but not often enough. Great restaurants get all of the Wait Staff together before a big mean and make sure everyone knows what's going on and who is responsible for what. Good Surgeons brief their operating staff what is going to happen, how it is going to go, and who is responsible for what, if something happens out of the ordinary. And in sports, coaches at all levels try to get their players to visualize a play before it happens, so that their mind is prepared for it and it becomes second nature.
Implementing this concept into your business or life isn't hard - but it does take time, creativity, and fore thought. Start simple and start big. Not that I want you to brief a monstrous undertaking - making the project even bigger than it already is. No, actually, I would like you to start by Briefing yourself every morning on what your day is going to be. Don't get down into details, just run through your day in your mind - what you want to happen, what possible emergencies could come up and what you could either do to avoid them or handle them. Think about where you are going to be, when you are going to be there, and who your are going to meet. Also think about thinks like when you are going to eat, sleep, and take care of other necessities of life - make them it all a conscious plan.
Do this every day for a week and see for yourself, how much more effective you will become. I think you will surprise yourself. You will get more done and be more effective in your life and your business than you've ever been in the past.
Our briefs would prepare us for the flight. They covered everything we expected to do from take-off to landing. They also covered everything that we didn't expect to do - like emergencies and contingencies. I won't lie to you, some were better than others at briefing and preparing - and the truth be told, it almost always was reflected in their airborne success.
But nNo pilots, that I've ever met, Brief better and more thoroughly than the Blue Angels. If you think their flying is amazing, then you should witness one of their briefs. For about 45 minutes, the entire team flies the show in their mind - in unison, to the calls of the "Boss" (Blue Angel #1). Their hands move together - as if they were almost tied together with invisible pieces of string. Each team member responding as if they were actually in the air - flying their machines at 500 mph, just 36 inches from each through full acrobatics. Truly a lesson we can all learn from.
The lesson that is truly empowering to everyone that applies briefing to their repertoiret is mental preparation. In fact, this form of preparation before an event does two beneficial things for any who use it:
1. Briefing grounds us in the proper attitude - getting us focused on the job at hand and helping us clear our mind of distractions.
2. Briefing forces us to think through each event - before we live it - actively engaging the subconscious mind in our goals before we call upon it to assist us in our endeavor.
I've heard many people say that things are created twice - first in the mind, and then in reality. What briefing does is make the first part, the mental preparation, a planned event that you can count on.
So how can you apply this to your business - to your life?
It's simple really - every time you get ready to do something, brief yourself and your team first. You see this in many instances in successful businesses, but not often enough. Great restaurants get all of the Wait Staff together before a big mean and make sure everyone knows what's going on and who is responsible for what. Good Surgeons brief their operating staff what is going to happen, how it is going to go, and who is responsible for what, if something happens out of the ordinary. And in sports, coaches at all levels try to get their players to visualize a play before it happens, so that their mind is prepared for it and it becomes second nature.
Implementing this concept into your business or life isn't hard - but it does take time, creativity, and fore thought. Start simple and start big. Not that I want you to brief a monstrous undertaking - making the project even bigger than it already is. No, actually, I would like you to start by Briefing yourself every morning on what your day is going to be. Don't get down into details, just run through your day in your mind - what you want to happen, what possible emergencies could come up and what you could either do to avoid them or handle them. Think about where you are going to be, when you are going to be there, and who your are going to meet. Also think about thinks like when you are going to eat, sleep, and take care of other necessities of life - make them it all a conscious plan.
Do this every day for a week and see for yourself, how much more effective you will become. I think you will surprise yourself. You will get more done and be more effective in your life and your business than you've ever been in the past.
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