dynamic – From the desk of Adam Thomas

I love checklists.

How easy is it to follow through when you don’t have to use any mental overhead to remember?

That’s why I love checklists. They eliminate “mental overhead” (energy spent maintaining your head space) by giving you a place to hold information in a static way.

This is important because our brain isn’t a computer, and things slip through the cracks. The list we hold in our head is dynamic because we are. Writing them down keeps them static. (Things being static isn’t always a bad thing…)

Knowing that, have you thought about having a list that you say “no” to?

The concept exists, and it’s called a “not-to-do list.”

The idea is simple: write down the things you don’t do. Keep it around to remind you to save yourself from the “mental overhead.” This way, you will hold yourself accountable to this way of doing things so it becomes native to you.

Well, That Was Bad

I bungled a presentation in front of the senior leadership that I sweated over and ultimately got wrong. It affected my work over the next week and threw me into a depression.

Lesson: Always know the game rules before playing.

True story. I tried to pitch something that was a slam dunk and realized I wasn’t prepared for the moment. That initiative took two more years and I failed to show my potential.

When we learn lessons, they often come with some experience. Sometimes it’s awful, but you get to take the lesson with you.

Don’t make the mistake of taking the experience with you.

If you aren’t careful, you risk becoming the experience instead of becoming yourself.

Your self is dynamic, resilient, antifragile.

Your experience is static, spiritless, fragile.

This is a major difference between being a leader and being bitter. The leader just takes the lesson.