WHY I LOVE PROJECT MINDSET

Hello and welcome to Project Mindset. In this episode, I'm going to share with you 6 important ideas why projects and mindset matter to your success. As well, I will share with you an exercise that we do when we start consulting in one of our clients' projects.

Welcome to the Project Mindset Podcast. I'm your host, Thea Brockmeyer, a project expert leadership coach for top executives for over 20 years. I'm obsessed with helping you achieving project results that you want and sound impossible by combining the science of project business and transformational leadership. This is for you if you want to uplevel your power of influence, make big projects happen, and achieve any results that your heart desires. Thank you for spending some time with me today. Let's begin now.

Now, why project mindset for you?

There will be 6 topics why I think this is important that you should have Project Mindset beside myself. So the first is really where— stay focused. Focus is the year, uh, the word of this year for me, and I know where my attention goes, my energy flows. So have you ever struggled to pick one topic to start with? To make decisions when we have so many opportunities is a challenge, especially today when we have so many things we can read, when we have when we have so many different people we can follow, when we have so many different software we can use for project management. And so, I really understood it's very important to stay focused. And a project is— has a limited time frame, it has a specific outcome, and it has a specific budget, right? So, this is something really which gives us a frame to achieve a result and to climb the first hill.

I speak 6 languages.

I cannot tell you which is my favorite. I love technology. I love psychology. I love building businesses. And I love teaching. I delivered more than 60 trainings per year on-site in project management, leadership, sales, negotiations, communication, and presentation skills. Now, I think you can relate that I had so many ideas. And I as well considered like how to learn languages, how to educate children, how to live the healthiest lifestyle while traveling, how to deliver a technical presentation, how to build a team. And my first online course is how to plan a project. So you can watch that on www.projectleaderacademy.com and you just look for "Family Smith is moving." and it's free. So you can learn what we taught in our project management courses easily for free. Yeah, and there will be a YouTube channel, but first this podcast. So I took all these classes and I really understand project management is what I need most to have a plan, to follow through, and to get One goal done at a time.

Now, why Project Mindset number 2?

Have you ever felt torn into different directions in your work? Or did you just miss the results? There is a physical part, or a spiritual part as you want to see it, component to all projects.

Because if we do split our energy into different directions, If we are chasing two goals at the same time, that means our energy gets split to all these different projects. Maybe you have been reading Eliot Goldrath, The Critical Chain. We all know it takes us at least 15 to 20 minutes to get back on track once we get disrupted in our work, right? So if our mind is in the morning, our intuition, busy with two or three projects, And maybe we are not so clear and we have a foggy mind later, which or what idea was meant for which project, right? So, what does GIVE us and how does it help us on the way to get results? It's so true for selling the biggest project of 100 million as well as getting the dinner party ready in time and not later.

So focusing our energy, our mind, helps us to add magic, to add magic to the project, to make doors opening. We focus our mind on the outcome and the result, and suddenly we meet the right people we did not see before the past. We get ideas how can we solve the problems and get financing and support beyond our wildest dreams. We become like cell towers radiating a special kind of energy, and it seems like people can connect to us and our project with their cell phones. But if we don't have enough power, if we don't radiate enough, there is no cell phone. So there is no reach, there is no bandwidth. And we need a lot of bandwidth to reach people so they can connect. If we split and we don't have enough bandwidth, we all observed, then there is no internet connection, right? So this is something which I think we should focus and our energy, our mental energy and our physical energy as well, because it takes a lot of work to make something happen, whether it's a dinner party or a 100 million project or building a hotel or an apartment. Now here comes number 3: Why project and mindset? The lack of resources is a killer of so many projects not only at home, even not only in the starters, but as well in large companies. As a project management consultant for large Fortune 500 corporations, I learned that so many projects started like this: You as a manager in the morning have a great idea, or maybe in the evening when you were drinking with your colleagues. So you jump out, go to work, Park your car, go to the elevator, the door just closed and you meet the expert and epiphany comes: "Wow, that would be the best guy to deal with that project." So, the sooner, even when you did not arrive, before you arrive to the top, he, the employee, is the expert and the kickoff of the project has been done because he had no time to ask any questions. And he's now entitled and he is now— yeah, he got the task and he's running and you are already in your next meeting. Some companies realize that they have too many projects with project plans, but instead of the expert's name, just in this org chart, you find no name, NN. So what is the solution? To build more or less complicated approval processes? Definitely be aware how many projects are you running and how many resources do we have. So when we are hired, get hired for being a consultant in companies with my team, um, one of the first steps we do is situation appraisal. And one of my first educations in consulting industry was with Kepner Trigo and I just love the situation appraisal process. And we will give the questions we use to ask our clients to you in the show notes. So you can find them in projectleaderacademy.com and then you find them in the blog 001. It's the first episode. I will put them there. What you can do, you can take a flip chart, you can take a paper, you can take a notebook or you can take Post-its and just write down all the projects you are running. And then you will be surprised how many you started. And this is the first thing you can do to find out how many complex or less complex tasks are you running. Very often big, big tasks did not get done because they're like elephants, and these big elephants, they need to be chunked down into manageable pieces. And this is one thing we need. You really need the time to make a plan. So if you don't have time to make a plan, you plan to fail. And that causes stress, no results, no focus, no mental focus, causes stress because people are busy but don't see the results and no outcome, and that is causing much more disease or so-called stress than the real work, which is focused on an outcome and gives us satisfaction. Now, here are the questions we ask when you do want to do this exercise, like: What projects do we have now? What bothers us?

What else?

What are our to-dos? What do we have to do? What shall we focus on? What am I responsible for? What complex tasks are on my table? So as I said, I will add even a download Google Doc so you can put it there if you prefer to work with Google Docs. Ah, in the show notes. Yeah, you go just to projectleaderacademy.com and then look for episode 001. I will show you in one of the next episodes how to prioritize these issues and find out which one to which one to skip and which one shall stay. So to identify your most important ones to focus your energy on. Now, number 4: Why project and mindset? This is so important for salespeople who are selling projects to large clients. That means even the supply of a big automated system or something which takes long time, has a long sales cycle like half a year, one year. That is a challenge and it's a sales project because the sales project at least ends with the delivery and the client is happy and pays you and is happy with the installation, right? Have you ever felt the fear of not reaching your numbers by the end of the quarter and you were chasing too many clients at the same time? We all know you cannot run after two rabbits at the same time. You will chase just one or you catch no one. So, as for large clients, offer is an individual offer. It's a lot of work. And I observed as a consultant that if we dig into one big client and have been working with them and running after a second the same time, it was so overwhelming. And it could easily happen that when you assign a contract of— you're just, you know, in debt of $5 million because you are so busy that you just you and your experts were in the hurry and just forgot about some essential pieces and parts in the list of supplies. So how many clients meetings do you have per day? How many projects are you running beside your clients meetings? Have you ever tried to organize that much more efficiently? Have you ever tried to get focused? And to get the commitment for that focus, especially when you're developing new markets. It's just 24 hours we all have, and we should really spread them out and use them wisely. Now, anyhow, this whole process is, uh, there is a process, and if we look for that project process, we will come to that later again, because I was teaching sales and selling large projects to big companies for many, many years for industries in different countries as well. So we can do that in English, German, and Russian. Number 5: Why project and mindset? Project and business negotiation, hmm, you need a good mindset and a good mindset to get all the people at the table influence to a positive outcome. Especially when people, we all have an ego. There is a good book, "Ego Is the Enemy." And imagine you're sitting in a luxury hotel in the conference room at the table, 12 other business experts and people and owners, and you have finished the coffee, you want to drink the champagne for closing the deal, the paperwork was translated, is ready to sign off. One year experts have been working, spent thousands of dollars, have been flying to different sites. The due diligence was— is fine, planning licenses have been obtained, stakeholders are on board, and the financing is set. And then suddenly, just like out of nowhere, some people at the white table start fighting over each other's importance. And the pieces and the size of the pie and the big deal that's logically ready is blowing up in the very last minute like a house of cards. So why? Now there are many reasons for these situations and every situation is complex, but the mind plays a one very important role. And there could be insecurity, there could be thinking style, thoughts like fear, lack of recognition and so many others. But all these puzzle pieces can be hold together by a strong mind. So like the example with the cell tower, and it takes a lot of energy to get all these things done and get the people together to create a shared vision and to align all these different interests and to help them overcome their fears and to support them with the willingness to motivate them. So leadership is needed. Even in negotiation, and it takes a lot of energy too, and because you have, you need cooperation of all stakeholders and people involved. Yeah, more on that. This is important in project management or project leadership. More about that in our trainings, and I will do episodes about that as well and invite some experts. On negotiations. Now, number 6: Why projects and mindset? So many projects, um, we are running that we are not aware of our roles. In some projects, we are the leader, hopefully not in all, because you cannot be the manager chasing everybody and triggering everybody to get his duties done. Therefore, usually you have an assistant But in some projects you will be the expert, in some projects even, maybe you don't call them a project, you are just the team member, right? So if it's maybe in your family that somebody else is planning all the vacations, then you have to participate and support. Or if you are invited to somebody else's project with your team as an expert, you are the boss of your team but there you are the expert and are in the role supporting the project. So we have to be very flexible and to train that muscle to be sometimes the expert, sometimes the team member, and sometimes the leader. And it's important to understand what is the role I'm playing here to help to complete the shared goal. Now, dear business owners, I encourage you go and make the, your list of your projects that you are running in your business, in your private life, So you have the chance to set priorities and focus. So finally, why I choose projects and mindset. I really, I'm really fascinated about all these new researches. I love to read all about our brain, how it functions, how it sabotages, how it supports us to create habits, for a successful, fulfilled life. Because I was chasing a lot of great projects, doing that, and thought by achievements alone I will be happy and that is what I have to do. And sure, I achieved a lot, but to be fulfilled, that means takes a lot of work in the mindset as well. And I love to create, I love to be focused on the outcome, and I am results-driven. And I really want to have that the process to these results is beautiful. So this is where the mindset comes with positive emotions, with positive experiences. And I'm excited when people from different countries and different cultures come together and work with a positive mind towards a common goal. In my next episode, I'm going to share how starting and leading projects can help you gaining self-confidence and growing your leadership skills in a way you never imagined before and prepares you for any business and leadership role in life and business you want. Thank you so much for watching this episode. Now I ask you kindly go to iTunes, leave me a positive review there. Thank you so much in advance, and now go and take action!