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You are not the results you produce.
That’s something we tend to forget, as we work so hard to accomplish things and make a difference. Which is all well and good, but it’s not the same as who you are as a wonderful human on this earth.
Think of it: You don’t change that quickly. You change slowly over the course of a lifetime, with spurts here and there, but generally it’s slow and steady.
Read the rest of this entry »I work with a lot of people who are troubled by how fuzzy the future is.
That’s the nature of it, of course, because the future is not yet written. That was the ultimate message of Back To The Future, that what’s to happen is unwritten and up to us to decide.
If that’s true, is our job then to just wait for the future to happen and then react to whatever that is? A little, I suppose, but I don’t find that satisfying.
Read the rest of this entry »By its very definition, when you focus on something you become blind to other things.
Your brain has limited bandwidth, limited attention. If you’re paying attention to one thing, you’re removing attention from something else. That’s just the way it works.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re doing it intentionally. To practice an instrument well, it really helps to be able to “shut out the rest of the world” for a while.
Read the rest of this entry »I put a whole lot of work into contracts during my career. More than I care to admit.
It occurred to me that it was a whole lot of time spent on something which rarely had to be used! I was working with partners, customers and suppliers, yet it was rare that we had to enforce anything. I never took anybody to court.
So what’s the point?
Read the rest of this entry »When I was in the corporate world, I experienced so much pressure to treat everything as high priority.
This is much too common. You start off listing tasks as A, B, C, then discover that most things are A priority so now you create A1, A2, A3 to separate them apart.
But then you see that most everything becomes A1, so you throw up your hands in despair. Or is it just me?
Read the rest of this entry »We each live our life, and then the world moves on without us. Our time is short.
I don’t mean for this to be a depressing thought. It’s actually encouraging to think that we’re a part of the progression of humanity, contributing in the ways that we choose.
That doesn’t make your work unimportant, it just brings a perspective which transcends what you do from day to day.
Read the rest of this entry »We are incredibly lucky, even despite all the annoyances and challenges.
I know it can be hard to maintain this attitude, because we’re always looking for problems. Places where things need to be fixed and we’re needed.
But let’s take just a moment to relax in the space of gratitude.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve never made a mistake at work, right? I’m sure you haven’t either.
The truth is that our management tasks often focus on identifying mistakes and preventing future ones. Fair enough I suppose. But people are fallible, and screw up sometimes.
Ourselves included.
Read the rest of this entry »Are you making the world a better place?
That’s SUCH a deep question, both for your role as a leader and for you personally. I’ve found it to be the one question that’s sustained my energy over the decades.
For me personally, I weave in and out of giving a positive response. But I do seek to get involved in organizations which will magnify and focus making an impact.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve found that things work better when I take a pause for important decisions.
Typically this looks like waiting until the next morning, but when I started my coaching business with Small Fish that was a week-long pause. During that time I investigated a few things, but the important part was to let my logical mind sync up with my emotional mind.
Same thing for deciding to propose a job in Australia – that was actually multiple weeks because of how deeply it affected the rest of my family.
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