Growth
Making Friends with Chaos
Using data is a key to improvement. To separate ourselves from others, we should embrace chaos.
Focus
Plateaus and Four Ways to Get Past Them
Everyone hits plateaus on the way to impossible goals, but there are things you can do to get past them more quickly: staying with the plan, changing the plan, easing up and staying one step ahead. Why Am I Stuck On This #@?!ing Plateau? I’ve hit a plateau. Actually I’ve Read more…
Innovation
Creating Deep Mastery from Repetition: Problem Solving
This is the fourth and final article about using repetition toward deep mastery. So far, we have explored discipline and expertise and expression. Repetition can take us to an even deeper level when we integrate it with problem solving. LEVEL 4 – REPETITION CREATES ELEGANT SOLUTIONS It’s easy to be Read more…
Growth
Soaring Past Discomfort To Breakthroughs
It’s an irritating nudge growing in intensity until it drowns out everything else. It’s tension. Frustration. Scapegoating. It’s ugly. And then the bottom comes, a swirly mess like being in free fall, tossed around in a hurricane. It’s a powerless, painful moment. And it’s the prelude to breakthrough.
Sometimes it seems we wait for rock bottom before we’re ready to change jobs, get fit, end a relationship or make any other big jump in our lives. Acting from rock bottom is a reactive way of fixing things, a back-against-the-wall scenario that’s not likely to lead to the biggest difference we can make for ourselves.
It’s a crisis response. What we’ve been doing is not working. We didn’t want to take extraordinary action, but our heart knows we need to. We’ve been coasting along, and now it’s different. It’s not about getting by. It’s a choice between withering and taking a chance to thrive.
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Leadership
We Got Your Back
“Testing oneself is best when done alone.” – Jimmy Carter
I remember throwing grapes at the TV as a spoiled teenager when a Jimmy Carter speech pre-empted my favorite show. I’d like to throw grapes at this quote.
I’ve grown to love Jimmy Carter. More than any other, he’s used his presence as an ex-President to do good in the world, to fight for peace and what’s right. And he hasn’t done it alone. He’s been surrounded the entire time by family, friends and allies. While I’m sure new wisdom has emerged during times of solitude, what brought that wisdom alive was sharing it with his team. They vetted it, elaborated on it, created new venues from which to broadcast it, and amplified the message. The test came when he was not alone.
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