Continuing on from creating connection in self mastery. We are now moving onto influence. As mentioned on Franklin Coveys website “Focus your energy and attention where it counts, on the things over which you have influence. As you focus on things within your Circle of Influence, it will expand. “

The first activity we did was to identify our influencing style. The link to the quiz is here.

Then to map out our circle of concern and circle of influence.

Then a reflection activity to reflect on how much you focus on things out of your control and influence and how you might let them go.

Before tying it back to our stakeholders and their concerns and influence and how we can help with that. This allows us to gain clarity and awareness around their concerns and also to build connection.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, creating connection.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 

Continuing on from motivations and culture in self mastery. Lets dive into how we can create better connection.

Marshall Rosenberg is credited with the creation of non violent communication method. You can see his videos here. As well as his book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships (Nonviolent Communication Guides).

Non Violent communication is a way of communicating that creates connection and a win win outcome for all parties to get their needs met.

Our first steps were to select the feeling words that resonated with each of us.

and do the same for the needs words from the universal needs list.

From here we completed the pause and listen activity durning the day.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, creating connection.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 

Continuing on from being alignment to values in self mastery. Lets explore our motivations and the culture we want out of a workplace. Dan Pink Talks in his book Drive about the 3 factors that lead to better performance and personal satisfaction as being Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy. Management 3.0 has an activity called moving motivators which expands this out a bit more.

Our first steps were to complete the moving motivators activity. this highlighted the top 3 motivators for each person. We mapped these to see any commonality across the team and then asked everyone to think about what they would change about their environment to support their motivations. What could happen that might make these motivators change position in their list?

Motivation is the driving force of your actions, whatever you value the most in life will be what determines the decisions you make. If you are not sure what you value the most you may be making decisions that don’t serve you or the organisation.

Next we added to this by completing the emotional culture deck activity.

Highlighting where can each be more aware of ourselves and each other in how we like to be treated and experience work. I believe the importance of this activity is in understanding what will trigger you and what could trigger others and having empathy for yourself and other in those situations and seeking connection instead of blame and shame.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, creating connection.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 

Continuing on from being grateful and showing gratitude in self mastery. We are now going to look to our alignment of our values to the work we do and to the organisation we are working in. being clear and aligning on these will bring your certainty and purpose.

As Christian mentioned in his article Value alignment is key to job satisfaction and also organisational success.

There are lots of values cards out there to choose from. Management 3.0 has a list here.

After identifying our top 5 values we mapped these to the organisations values and also agile values. (we are agile coaches after all) .

Motivation is the driving force of your actions, whatever you value the most in life will be what determines the decisions you make. If you are not sure what you value the most you may be making decisions that don’t serve you or the organisation.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, creating clarity.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 

Continuing on from being intentional with how we present ourselves in the world in Self mastery, the next activity I have being grateful and showing gratitude. Seeing the glass half full and the good in the world and your life.

Tony Robbins talks about positive and negative stacking as a way of changing your perspective and mood. When we are in love we let all sorts pass, everything is wonderful. When we are upset or angry we are very quick to assume the worst and attribute everything a person does as negative.

Lets aim to see the good in life, assume positive intent and give ourselves and others grace.

This activity is a simple journal activity from the book. Note to self journal by Rebekah Balagh. This book is full of great activities for self mastery.

When my team ran through this activity it was amazing how much calmer and appreciative we were. Many have incorporated this activity as a daily practice in their lives.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, see the world with love, gratitude and appreciation for the wonderful gift life and this opportunity is.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 

Continuing on from self regulation of emotions with breathing in Self mastery, the next activity I have becoming aware of what you show the world and what you hide from the world. What others see in you and what they don’t know and what you don’t know that others see in you.

The Johari window was created byJoseph Luft and Harrington Ingham as a way to uncover conscious and unconscious bias.

Gartner has a great glossary on the various different quadrants as below.

• Open area: Anything you know about yourself and are willing to share with others
• Blind area: Anything you do not know about yourself, but that others have become aware of
• Hidden area: Anything you know about yourself and are not willing to share with others
• Unknown area: Any aspect unknown to you or anyone else

Mindtools have a very good article on how to complete the exercise.

The way we ran it was to work with your buddy (separately to avoid any group think or halo effect) select from the coloured adjectives that describe you and put them into the quadrants on the johari window.

Your Buddy does the same with their ones, but in relation to how they see you.

Notice the various sections as per the above Gartner descriptions. Your aim is to expand your open area and the ones you might was to move from the blind and hidden sections.

These reflection question can help with this process.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, enables you to realise your capabilities and be intentional about how you show up in the world.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 

Continuing on from self awareness in Self mastery, the next activity I have is breathing tracking, this is around focusing on taking care of your wellbeing and being able to emotionally regulate.

The first step is creating awareness of your breathing, just taking time to track it and slow it down with box breathing.

I ran through this exercise along with the heart math app with a few people and just spending 5 mins slowing your breathing down, made a huge difference to how they were feeling that day.

By bringing awareness, creating visibility, enables you to realise you have control over you.   It works with the work in teams and it works with ourselves.  Become aware, pick something small to work on, make some changes, see what happened and start again. 



If you want to get focused and achieve your goals or at the least your to do list, you will need some way of tracking and prioritising them.

Here are 5 approaches that I have used successfully over time. I enjoy mixing it up based on what is suiting me best at the time.

Reach out if you would like to know more about any of these ideas.