James Laughlin walks through the Top Traits exercise: text eight trusted people and ask which single trait of yours they'd want to adopt. A study shows positive feedback improves performance while negative feedback doesn't. Use their answers to identify strengths worth doubling down on.
NZ Mortgages is the proud sponsor of the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages.co nz. A huge welcome back to the show. This week we're going to talk about feedback. Look, we all need it, Sometimes we like it, sometimes we loathe it, but we all need feedback and sometimes it's really positive, sometimes it's negative, sometimes it's neutral. But actually, if we want to learn, feedback is important. Feedback from our peers, feedback from feedback from our clients, customers, colleagues, family members, whatever it might be, feedback is absolutely crucial. And actually I was reading a study, I made some notes on this earlier. So I analyzed the causal impact of positive and negative impact on the professional performance and looking at the various factors, what was really interesting was this. The analysis shows that receiving positive feedback has a favorable impact on on subsequent performance, whilst negative feedback does not have an effect. So that was a very interesting study and it really reinforces something that when we are seeking feedback, we've got to always ask both for positive and negative. The negative feedback doesn't impact future performance, but the positive feedback really supercharges future performance because it reinforces desired behaviors. So if any of you have been to my live event or you've brought me in to work with your team, I've actually spent the last couple of days with an amazing commercial real estate company and I'm going all around the country to work with all of their leaders and I asked them to do this exact exercise I'm about to ask you to do. And every year at HPL I do this. And in fact, there's only a few tickets left for High performance leadership. It's in October this year, October 17th, I believe. You can go check it out. I'll make sure that the team put the link in the show notes. We've got the former president of Adidas North America there, we've got Sir Wayne Smith, like two epic leaders. And we'll have another speaker we'll reveal soon, but I think we've got about 75% of the tickets are sold. So if you've got one, thank you so much. Looking forward to meeting you in person. It's the one and only time every year where I open the doors to the public to come in and it's an incredible day of personal growth, self mastery and leadership. So it'll be awesome. So if you want to take it, there's only a couple left. Go and grab yourself one. The link is in the show notes. So this exercise that I do at the event, I'M going to ask you to consider doing it right now. It can be uncomfortable, but it's all about seeking input that can help us with our output. So it's simply this. You're going to write this text message at some point today. If you're out walking, running or driving, don't worry about it, just come back to this. So you're going to write this text and then you're going to send it to eight people. Eight people in your life. And you're only going to send it to people that you like, trust and respect. If you don't like, trust and respect them, don't send them this message. It's pointless. So you're going to send this message out. And it should be a variety of people, some in your family, some in your professional sphere, and some outside. So some could be friends, some could be colleagues, some could be family members, and some who maybe you report to, some who report to you, perhaps even clients. I've had people send this out to their clients. So you're going to say something along the lines of this. Hey, I'm just working on some personal growth and professional development. And the trainer or the mentor or the coach has asked me to send a message to a few people in my life that I really respect and value. So if there was one trait of mine that you could extract from me and integrate it into your own life, what would it be? Sincerely appreciate it, thank you so much. And then sign off, copy and paste that to eight people. Right. So you're asking them to determine what's the one trait about you that's amazing, that they would love to take or have a little bit of and implement it, integrate it, add it into their life professionally, what might it be? It's vulnerable to do that takes courage to do that. But out of the thousands and thousands of people that have went through my hpl, the High Performance Leadership Program, all around self leadership and self mastery, everyone that has done this has had such amazing insights about themselves. When these text messages start coming back in over the hours and days, they are so overwhelmed with joy. Because some of the things that other people seen in them, they never saw in themselves. And when you see these things, these are the things that are your innate strengths, the things that you're great at, that people know you for. And these are the things you want to double down on. Because high performers who achieve greatness don't double down on their weaknesses. They double down on their strengths. They delegate out to their weaknesses. They're aware of their weaknesses. They get a team around them to help them with their weaknesses, but they double down on their strengths. So this is your challenge to send out to eight people. I would love to know some of the feedback. So as you know, we've got a new feature in the show, Notes on Apple and Spotify. You can go in, it says, send me a text message. If you do that, I will get your message. And so I'd love to read it and I'll maybe read some of them out on the show. Please go in there and send me a text message and let me know what some of the things were that you got by. And if you don't want to use that, use LinkedIn. Send me a message on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you on there or Instagram if that's your thing. So please let me know some of the things that people see in you. And those eight responses. Do more if you want, but don't do less. I want you to capture them somewhere on a note on your iPhone or your phone or Samsung, whatever you use, and I want you to keep them. Why? Because when the next time comes that you don't have self belief. When the next time comes, when you lack faith in your ability to do the thing, when you're having a bad day, week, month, or you're facing the headwinds of a difficult market, this one technique is going to allow you to look back and go, whoa, people see a lot of goodness in me. I can step forward and do the thing. It's a really simple exercise. I call it the Top Traits exercise. Please do it. It's optional, of course, but the fact that you're listening to this would suggest that you value growth and you value getting the most out of your life, making a difference. This one exercise will allow you to receive a lot of POS positive feedback. Now beware. You will probably get a few cheeky responses. I've had people get responses like, are you okay? Do I need to send help? Not everyone's into personal growth and development, but most people will respect the fact that you actually give them the honor of giving you feedback. So please go out and give it a crack. I would like to know how that goes. And just to let you know, we've got some amazing, absolutely amazing guests coming up, so keep a lookout for it. But for now, get out there and lead your life on purpose. NZ Mortgages is the proud sponsor of the Lead on Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages Co NZ.
