culled from:bizjournal.com
Elizabeth McCormick almost failed flight school because her instructor didn’t think women should fly. Her commanding officers loved to tell her — with a sneer — “little girl, you’re wasting my time.” And after she left the Army because of an injury, a renowned motivational speaking coach said her story wasn’t different enough to succeed on the circuit.
And yet there she was, a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot and entrepreneur giving the keynote address at a conference I attended last month at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte. The event was designed to teach and inspire female veterans and military personnel to consider entrepreneurship.
Now McCormick travels for speaking engagements around the world and is CEO of Soar 2 Success International, a professional training and publishing company.
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Here are some business lessons I took away from her speech:
1. ‘No’ is a complete sentence.
I’m not sure McCormick could have found a better crowd to say this to than a group of overachieving female veterans with big goals for the future. But the principle applies to everyone in business. Because who hasn’t had to tell a client they couldn’t make it? Who hasn’t had to turn someone down?
If you’re anything like me, the process probably goes like this: My palms start sweating, I get anxious, and I follow up the request or invitation with an apologetic email or call (praying for voicemail, of course). And if someone does pick up the phone, then comes the word vomit. Lots of apologies and details about why it just won’t work.
Next up: the guilt. “Could I have figured it out? Maybe if I rearranged a few things and skipped out on something else, I could have made this thing work…”
That’s a lot of pressure to put on one interaction and one decision.
Then picture this: being able to say, “No, I won’t be able to,” or “No thanks, I’m fine” without the “and yes, I’m a horrible person” epilogue.
Peers, colleagues, clients — they feed off the vibes you give out, McCormick said. So make your business an environment imbued with confidence. And sometimes that means saying “no” with conviction.
2. You need a cheerleader. And there’s no one better qualified than you.
Everyone always talks about how men in business just go for it, McCormick said. Men make risky calls. They go for the big promotion even if they’re not qualified.
Meanwhile, women hesitate — an MO that nearly always guarantees lower pay, fewer opportunities and slower advancement.
And a lack of self-confidence is often why there’s that hesitation. McCormick combats the uneasiness with a simple routine:
“As I brush my teeth every morning, I’m thinking about five positive words,” McCormick said. “(I’m thinking) ‘I am smart, I am confident. I am powerful. I am strong. I am a rock star.’
You can use different words, of course, but after you spit out the toothpaste, say them out loud, she advises. Because what your brain hears, it believes.
“When you do this (activity) every day, it becomes like an invisible suit of armor,” McCormick said. And you’ll need that armor to keep criticism from crippling you and your business.
3. Understand how to do your employees’ jobs — and do them, when needed.
Empathy is powerful in an internal business relationship. That’s why McCormick shared how valuable it is that bosses have experience doing the very tasks they ask employees to do.
McCormick recalls her flight training for extracting troops from a wooded area where the helicopter couldn’t land. Its nickname: the “dope on a rope” exercise.
Here’s how it works: The helicopter drops a rope with harnesses attached to it into the trees. The troops climb in. The pilot flies straight up to get the troops out of danger.
But before the pilots could ever pull someone to safety, they had to be the dope on a rope themselves.
“We had to fully understand how important it was to be precise and careful, that there were lives down on those ropes,” McCormick said. “And let me tell you, that was scary. You’re totally out of control in a harness that was built for a man. I ended bruising two of my ribs.”
The same principle applies to business. Understand what’s going on around you. Know how to do the tasks you ask your employees to do. Because perspective is valuable, whether you’re manning a Black Hawk or managing from a corner office.
