Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Comfort Zones and Leadership

 

Thanks to social media, over the last 13 years, I have had the privilege to meet a variety of amazing marketing, leadership, and customer experience experts. One of these experts is Melanie Benson from Los Angeles. We recently had a discussion about leadership, coaching, and comfort zones, and highlights follow below Melanie's bio.

Melanie Benson, Authority Amplifier for Expert-preneurs, shows her clients how to stand out in a crowded market and attract opportunities. She has a proven track record of accelerating results for her clients. She’s host of the Amplify Your Success Podcast, author of Rewired for Wealth, co-author of Voices of the 21st Century, and has been featured in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Woman’s Day, and Parenting. Visit her online at MelanieBenson.com and connect on Twitter @melcoach.

QUESTION: You use the word AMPLIFY a great deal. What does that word mean to you and your business?
MELANIE BENSON: To spread your business message, make a greater impact, and exponentially increase your revenue is the goal -- but most people work ten times harder than necessary to accomplish this. When you amplify, you are able to grow exponentially with very little effort. When I work with entrepreneurs who are building a business around their expertise, they often have a million things to accomplish with very little time. Anything that helps them amplify their results without having to work twice as hard is a game changer. I also find that AMPLIFY is a powerful word that integrates the masculine ACTION and the feminine of CREATION, so that it feels exciting to both male and female entrepreneurs.

QUESTION: You wrote a blog post entitled, "Five Signs You Are Meant to Lead." Can you share some key highlights from that post?

(Post referenced: https://melaniebenson.com/5-signs-you-are-meant-to-lead/)

MELANIE BENSON: Often, someone with a powerful message and great work that can help others feels like a best kept secret in their market. If you are meant to lead, then there is something about you, your work and your leadership style that can positively impact others.

Sometimes an entrepreneur doesn’t really feel like they are “leadership material,” and they shy away from influencing others. But the truth is, we influence others all the time! We lead our children, we direct our team members, and if we work with clients, we often inspire their actions on a daily basis. When we “own” our leadership role, we can not only have a greater impact, but we also can learn how to be a better leader.

TWEET THIS: When we “own” our leadership role, we can not only have a greater impact, but we also can learn how to be a better leader. ~@coachmel #LeadershipTip #DebbieLaskeysBlog


QUESTION: What three things should a person do to get out of their comfort zone?
MELANIE BENSON: A comfort zone is where most of us like to live: a mental space where we know what to do, how to do it, and have a sense of control over our lives. As an entrepreneur who wants to make a greater impact and grow his/her/their revenue potential, a comfort zone keeps you trapped right where you are.

Three things I often coach my clients to do to get beyond their comfort zones are:
[1] Set a goal you have no idea how to pull off (and the idea of accomplishing it inspires you, so you imagine it often).

[2] Focus on what you want, not how to get there. Stop trying to figure it all out. Instead, keep your thoughts and actions on taking the next steps. Ask yourself, “Who would I have to be for this to feel easy to accomplish?”

[3] Challenge yourself to shatter limits and fears and stretch your paradigm of what you believe is possible. Do something every week that is not comfortable so that you get used to feeling “outside” of your normal approach to things.

When you decide to push through your comfort zone, it's common to have all kinds of challenges, fears, and a very logical set of reasons why it can’t work. We call it Upper Limiting. I invite you to check out an episode of my Amplify Your Success podcast where I share how to recognize and move beyond this common trap: https://melaniebenson.com/upper-limits-podcast/.

QUESTION: You are a passionate advocate for women in leadership roles, so on a related topic, what is your favorite RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) quote, and why?

MELANIE BENSON: RBG was a powerful force for good in our world. She shattered limits and accomplished what many women didn’t believe was possible. One of her quotes that inspires me is: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

For those who are building a business with the intention of creating positive change in the world, we often have to battle many who don’t believe in our vision, and who won’t support our efforts. To take on this challenge, we have to inspire others to take action that they may not believe in at first. Being a leader who inspires is a million times more sustainable that being someone who forces, uses fear tactics, manipulates, or hurts others to make their point. When leaders inspire others to join their efforts, they create a movement, and THAT is what creates lasting change.

TWEET THIS: When leaders inspire others to join their efforts, they create a movement. ~@coachmel #LeadershipTip #EmployeeExperience #DebbieLaskeysBlog


QUESTION: You shared a tweet by Mark Twain on Twitter: "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." What does that quote mean to you, and why is it your inspiration?
MELANIE BENSON: Two out of five of my entrepreneurial clients feel a lack of support in achieving their goals in their home or environment. Three out of five of my clients have had a mentor who shamed them or used fear tactics to try to get them to take action.

The work I do with my clients is very different from most “coaches” out there. I find the superpower inside them and help them amplify it so that they transform their wisdom into wealth. I don’t need to use fear or shaming to get people into action. I uncover what lights their fire and show them how to accomplish their goals so that they get what they really want. Sometimes I have to do some mindset recoding to help them believe in themselves again.

In my experience, a great person has a unique talent to make someone feel they are capable of accomplishing anything they want in life. That is my personal aspiration – to be that kind of force for my clients and the world.

My gratitude to Melanie for sharing her leadership and coaching insights and for appearing here on my Blog.

Image Credit: Twitter.

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