The final piece to bringing my most confident self to work is music. Like most people, I have my favorite songs that remind me of a particular time in my life or life event. As I considered what kind of music would help me focus and keep my energy high, I thought about the songs that I blast when they come on. Since I already have a positive association with those songs, that seemed like a good place to start. I’m not a huge music person. Many of my favorites are from the ’60s and ’70s that I grew up listening to with my parents. Then my interests tend to skip ahead to the late ’90s and early 2000s. However, I wanted a song that I didn’t associate with another time in my life. It’s been a journey for me to become a confident leader, and I didn’t want to choose a song that reminded of a less confident time in my time.
When I’m about to head into a tough conversation or meeting, I take a few minutes and do the power poses I explored in the first post in this series. Then I summon my alter ego, or lion persona, that I discussed in the second post. At the same time, I play “Thunder,” by Imagine Dragons. There are many lyrics in that song that help me to become my most confident self. The chorus and their repetition of the word “thunder” helps me to focus.
All of this preparation takes less than 5 minutes. If possible, I try and do some of this prep in the room where the meeting will be. That’s not always possible, and so my office is a good back-up. Taken together, these three elements: power poses, alter egos, and an empowering song can become part of our leadership behavior practice.
What would your song be?