All in Personal Codes
One of the hardest but most valuable abilities we can develop is the ability to maintain strength in our convictions, our beliefs and our vision. This is true in all walks of life, but particularly so where you’ve been tasked with achieving a specific objective or leading a team towards a particular end goal.
In that quest, you are called upon to define the specific path, chart out how best to navigate it, and then, as you embark on the journey, bring others with you.
Judging someone's character is a difficult thing to do. A one-off incident or action shouldn't be taken out of context (with a few exceptions) and presumed to represent the entirety of who someone is.
But patterns are different. If the behavior is repeated, if it's recurring, it tells you something. Patterns matter.
We throw around the word "partnership" pretty loosely. And often, when we do, we're sincere about it. But it's easy to talk about partnerships when there's nothing at stake.
You really find out whether you have a real partnership (or not) when problems arise. And in those moments, there's one trait that matters above all else, as I discuss in today's episode.
From a young age, we're programmed with the idea that we'll grow up to get a job and do our work. But we don't often consider what that means.
Why are we doing what we're doing? What are we trying to achieve? As I discuss in this episode, it has to be about more than the money - whose mission are we serving?
Well, it’s the end of another year and, for many of us, it’s that time when we reflect on the year just past and, more importantly, what we’d like to achieve in the one coming up.
I’ve been doing exactly that - considering all of the different goals I’d like to achieve and assessing what it will take to achieve them. This analysis - while hopeful in its intent - also brings up the inevitable:
I’ve been thinking about what “essential” in our lives truly means.
At the beginning of our lives, we need very little - a place to sleep, food to eat and little else. Everything else, we fill in with our imaginations. Late in our lives, it seems pretty similar.
It’s the stuff in-between that, I think, confuses us.
It’s easy to lose our sense of playfulness. In fact, at some point in our adult lives, so many of us do. We don’t realize it in the process. We really only figure it out well after the fact (if at all).
We tend to put it down to ‘growing up’, to becoming an adult. Just a normal part of life, because life is serious business, and only kids can afford the luxury of play.
A brief post from me today as I’m afraid I’m still feeling the effects of a more than abundant Thanksgiving Day feast.
Someone once said that “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” You know, we see this in all walks of our lives, from work to personal ones.
When I was in my teens and learning to play the guitar, there was a guy I knew who had been playing for a few years and was really quite good. He knew how to play all the cool songs I wanted to learn to play, knew all the cool riffs and could play by ear. But he wasn’t interested in sharing any of his knowledge.
I specifically remember him playing Stairway To Heaven, a song I was trying to learn.
Today's episode recounts a decision I made many years ago that, in the grand scheme of things, was relatively minor. It was my decision to get - and then remove - my earring before I went to Business School.
Not a huge decision in most contexts, but it was definitely one that taught me about why we make the choices we make - and WHY we should make the choices we make.
Lack of patience isn’t a helpful trait at the best of times. But in sales, it pretty much kills your ability to be effective.
It tends to manifest itself in the desire to close the deal yesterday i.e. a not-so-subconscious need to convert discussions into Dollars by the end of the call or meeting, no matter how little conversation has actually taken place.
Today's episode is a reflection on Bono, U2's legendary frontman. It's based on a post I wrote shortly after watching them perform The Joshua Tree live in Chicago.
Bono represents the ideal when it comes to achievement. He does what he loves, has achieved tremendous success and uses this fame and success to do more for others. It's an ideal worth us pursuing in our own ways.
The idea of ‘secrets’ is a funny thing. I’m not talking about secrets in a personal sense but in a work related sense. Our tactics, our approaches, our tools and knowledge. Our so-called secret sauce that ‘helps’ us achieve our professional goals.
We tend to hold these secrets dearly, with the idea that they are indeed unique to how we operate and what we do. And then the idea that if they were to get out, then our ability to achieve is doomed.
Today's episode focuses on a story from Live Aid back in the mid-Eighties and a moment that set the band U2 on the path to global stardom.
But on the day, it didn't seem like it to the band - and represents a lesson about risk-taking that we can all learn from.
NOTE: There are no spoilers in this post, but if you’re someone who wants to know nothing about ‘Squid Game’ before you watch it, save this post for later...
In the blockbuster Netflix show, Squid Game, 456 contestants are pitted against each other (unwittingly, at first) in what is essentially a death match to see who will claim the $38 million grand prize.
As I write this post, I’m 30,000 feet in the air, on an American Airlines flight headed to New Jersey. The last time I was on a plane was, funnily enough, exactly a year and a half ago, to the day.
If you’d told me back then that it would be 18 months before I’d fly again, I’d have told you that you were nuts.
This week’s blog and podcast have been about this idea of leaving a legacy, and I’d like to tack on one last thought on the topic.
And that is that leaving a legacy suggests - at least to me - that we must become “enlightened” in some way. I’m using the term ‘enlightened’ not only in the spiritual sense, but in any context, including in our craft. There are those, for example, who understand their industry so well, who have ‘mastered’ their technical work, who are so well versed in their disciplines, that we might consider them to be enlightened in their specific domains.
This month's podcasts draw lessons from popular culture.
In today's episode, I discuss a quote from Thom Yorke of Radiohead about this idea of exposure and vulnerability and the role it plays not only in art (which we tend to accept) but also in business (which we often don't).
At what point do we stop asking questions?
It comes very naturally to us when we’re young, but at some point, so many of us, simply stop.
There are many reasons for this. It could be that it wasn’t encouraged at home. Or it could be that our schools and our teachers didn’t want to hear them. Or it could be peer related, not wanting to seem ‘out of place’ with our friends. (I can’t quite decide which of those is the worst.)
