All in Aspirations
One of the problems I constantly struggle with when playing guitar is that, when I’m noodling around, I’ll gravitate towards the same chords and progressions.
In other words, I want to play something fresh and original, but I’m constantly back at G, Am, C and D.
At the end of the movie, Jurassic Park, the lead actors are in an enclosed space, surrounded by menacing velociraptors. It looks like their time is up, until suddenly, out of nowhere, a T-Rex suddenly appears and attacks the velociraptors, allowing our heroes to escape to safety.
That plot twist is called a Deus Ex Machina, which is Latin for God From The Machine…
Tough times call for tough measures. But those tough measures can also be fraught with risk - both real and perceived. Biggest of all is the perception that we'll be overreacting.
But, as I discuss in today's podcast, that shouldn't worry us. The end goal and those we serve, matter far more.
At the end of the day, I think the most important type of wealth we’re after is time. In particular, the freedom to do what we want with it.
I know the conventional thinking is that we’re after financial freedom, but the reason we’re after that is to be able to do whatever we want i.e. to use our time as we please.
Earlier this week, I was in an Uber on my way to a client meeting.
As we rolled up to the building, my driver pointed to the client’s name emblazoned on the building and exclaimed: “This is a Moroccan company! I grew up in Morocco and their products are everywhere!” I smiled and said they’re a very big brand.
Confidence and volume are two separate ideas, but often, when it comes to our communications, we tend to conflate the two.
There is a material difference and, as I discuss in today's episode, it's important we work to understand that distinction.
I’ve always held to the view that the root cause of poor behavior (towards others) is low self-esteem. That’s always made sense to me: if we don’t have enough self-confidence or belief in ourselves, how can we expect to accept others’ (differing) perspectives - and not react in some way?
Well, Adam Grant posited a somewhat different - perhaps a more nuanced - point of view, based on research published in journals such as Psychological Review.
How we spend our time on a day to day basis is materially influenced by the extent to which we're responding to signals or to noise.
In today's episode, I speak to the need to think about which cues we pick up and what we react to - the signals versus the noise.
Is it an investment or a cost?
That seems like semantics but I think there’s a bit more to the question.
Having our “fingers in multiple pies” seems like a good idea when we’re starting out.
Business environments are competitive, clients are demanding and surviving means doing whatever’s needed to make money.
Ideologies are a useful mobilizing force. They rally our communities and allow resources to be effectively deployed towards a common goal.
Everyone involved knows exactly what they need to do and the ends towards which they’re working.
We love being the hero in our stories. But Donald Miller talks about there being only 4 key roles you can take on in your business story.
And being the hero isn't one of them. You need to be the guide, as I discuss in today's episode.
We tend to think of competitions as absolutes, that there are always clear winner and losers.
But other than in sports, that’s just not the case. (And even in sports, depending on your timelines, it’s absolutely the case.)
Is it still breaking the rules if everyone knows you’re doing it?
My kids’ High School has this tradition near the end of Senior Year called “Senior Ditch Day”, where kids skip school and just hang out. Now, this was never a thing when I was growing up (I didn’t grow up in the US) but it seems to be here.
I don’t know how much is actually within our control.
I know many of us like to think everything is, even as there are others who think nothing is, that we’re all simply subjects (victims?) of fate.
If I had to choose, I’d put myself more in the former camp - that we can indeed make of ourselves and our situations what we will.
Momentum, in a psychological sense, is a funny thing.
It’s a mindset that wields so much influence, dominating our focus, often despite the facts. And while momentum tends to build over time, the reality is that it can also turn on a dime.
You can be in the midst of a string of strong results but one bad event, particularly one that you’d banked on, or considered ‘symbolic’ and your confidence is gone.
Trevor Noah once referred to our culture as our operating system, one that we're rarely even aware of.
That's an apt explanation of the role and value of culture. It's something that can make us - but just as equally, it can break us.
Culture matters. They define whether an organization will be successful or not.
But, as I discuss this in episode of the podcast, cultures aren't created overnight - they take intention, strategy and work to build. I share several strategies to help build great cultures.
So, I realize I’ve come this late (it was a big thing during the pandemic) but recently, I’ve started making my own sourdough bread.
It’s a fascinating activity to take on - a much longer and much more involved process than I originally expected. From start to finish (i.e. from levain preparation to actual baked bread), it takes about 36 hours, because there are a number of steps to be followed, each with specific time requirements, particular results to be achieved at each step, and plenty of waiting in between.
Stability is a pipe dream. We long for it and yearn for things to be normal, for things not to change.
The reality is that life doesn't quite work that way. The fact of the matter is, as I discuss in today's episode, that we're always in transition. Accept that idea and we're liberated.
