Tag: growth

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Move the B to an A, Please.

Best Better

Working on your worst attribute means you are taking time away from your best.

Opportunity cost exists because we are here for a limited time. People know us for our best attributes. However, there is a point where our worst can throw us and our intent off.

Pay attention to those times, and try to correct them.

Other than that, don’t waste time.

In school bringing an F to a C, has a ton of benefits, way more than bringing a B to an A or A+. In life, however, the opposite is true. You’ll get much more out of pushing an A to an A+.

Proceed accordingly.

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Let Someone Else Talk

Fight the will to win or to lose, just for a moment:

  • Try to seek compromise.
  • Allow someone to save face.
  • Merge ideas when possible

In the short term, especially without control, this method will drive you crazy.

You’ll notice meetings getting longer than before. Maybe someone over talks from time to time. In fact, you may even miss a deadline or two.

Give it time, though, and something interesting starts to happen. People start to feel engaged. The work gets far more creative. In most cases, more risk means more reward (especially in this risk adverse world we live in).

Ask yourself, is the short-term silence of victory worth the long-term growth of the team?

 

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Confusion Starts A Learning Process

Sometimes, you’re confused.

That is ok.

Lately, I’ve noticed when I accept that I am confused and don’t feed into my brain’s tendency to cling to what it thinks is right, I get an opportunity to learn.

Then I grow. If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.

So how do you grow?

It starts by recognizing that my confusion is the first step in understanding something new and taking a moment to appreciate that.

Our comfort zone expands when we step out of it.

High Ambiguity. Low Fear.

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Pain is the Cost of Admission

The quest to “be better” has much suffering.

The reason?

You expose yourself. Instead of playing in your “corner,” you’ve decided to reach out and see more. You got vulnerable.

When, not if, but when you fail, it sucks.

You have a few options after, one of which is to curl up into a ball and retreat to your corner.

A better idea, methinks, is to learn how to feel and understand suffering. Frame it as the cost of admission. Know that at the end of the ride, you’ll “be better.“

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Decide to be Bigger.

Make the world around you bigger or make your inner insecurities make you smaller.

There is always a choice.

Within all of us, there is an opportunity to strive for challenges and inspire the next person. Going towards this path often helps others seek it, even when they can, by all external accounts, be further along than you. Everyone, no matter how far along they are, can feed off of good energy.

That is why an organization like the Special Olympics makes the world bigger. Differently abled individuals strive and can influence someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One of our weaker paths, like the person below, makes us smaller. It succumbs to the need to be liked by others. The cheapest route is being cynical, spending time belittling those who seem like “easy targets” for the other bullies. The result is a net negative.  It doesn’t make the world bigger; you just make some people laugh and shrink the courage of those around you. You also do it to yourself, because you don’t want to be “other.” That means you might be next, so you better not be the tall poppy.

 

When given a choice, strive. You’ll be much more memorable that way.

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Task Framing | Eisenhower Matrix | Important and Not Urgent

These are your opportunities for growth

Why is important not urgent the key to growth?

These tasks have the characteristics of:

  • Non-linear growth to your skills
  • Increasing the power of your network
  • Expanding your awareness and vision

No one is going to ask you to do any of this stuff, yet, I don’t know anyone who enjoys sustained success without them.

These tasks are the reason you protect time in your calendar.

Your career and livelihood depend on them.

Also, like the important and urgent tasks, this block can get overloaded if you aren’t careful. Remember the story of the Donkey who starved to death because he couldn’t get both food and water at the same time. If he just chose one thing at a time, he could have both.

Don’t overload.

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Don’t Plant 1000 Seeds

You can’t plant everywhere

When we start something, inevitably a voice in our head goes”That sounds like a lot of work.”  It “sounds” like a lot of work because it is. If every idea is a seed, the work to make sure it becomes a plant is significant.

The things that matter take a lot out of us. There are no shortcuts. Time is important.

It’s imperative that you don’t try to “grow” everywhere.

Every time you decide to take on more you will have less:

  • Less time
  • Less effort
  • Less leeway
  • Less slack
  • Less forgiveness

That is why you have to master “no.”

Figure out what is important, and give yourself the freedom to find what matters.

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Talk to Your Team

You aren’t lazy unless you keep it to yourself

If you’ve done the “work required to have an opinion,” then you’ve done your job.

After that, it is your responsibility to say “I don’t know.”

If you don’t, you are harming your team. Get vulnerable. You have the opportunity to raise a question that helps the team.

Teams celebrate “I don’t know” if the leader has laid the foundation of a healthy culture.

That’s the type of growth that creates great teams.

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Stop Playing the “God Game”

We aren’t capable of playing the “God Game” well.

What is the “God Game?”

The “God Game” is when you try to control every outcome, have every contingency, and command every action.

Two problems with the game

  1. When you believe you know everything, you are blind to the unknown. This tactic can be catastrophic (i.e., Hillary Clinton’s campaign for President, “Stay” for Brexit).
  2. Working with humans is like a garden, leading them is the necessary fertilizer and water. We can’t command a flower to grow the way we want; we can only feed, water, and cultivate it. Playing the God Game makes us control others’ growth and development.

Playing the God Game blinds us and burns us out.

Let your people grow.

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Taste is Not a Sprint,it’s a Marathon

Developing taste takes time

Marathons are fascinating. Although they have runners and a finish line, they aren’t races. It’s more of an endurance event, a test of someone’s will over the course of 26 miles. Because of its structure, certain things, “like pace,” become critical.

Experienced marathon runners know that keeping pace is important. They’ve practiced and know that they need to keep up a certain speed to stay consistent. Consequently, that consistency gets them to the end faster.

The amateur does the opposite. An amateur sees a race and speeds out ahead early. The amateur tries to “beat” the others around. As a result, this tactic results in failure at some point.

Your taste won’t be completely formed after a few weeks or even a year. It’s not a race. It’s a marathon.

Therefore, approach your “taste” like a marathon.

Focus on your taste’s pace. It needs to align with your It develops as and when you do.

See it as something that you are preparing for the long road ahead.

You’ll get there.

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