The trap of "killing two birds with one stone"

First, we might need a better, kinder idiom. But, more importantly, this rarely works. Trying to achieve two objectives at once means that we are going to compromise on both. When a project, activity or interaction has a clear "what's it for?", we can make it

Choosing discomfort.

Most people choose comfort over growth. What do you choose?

A strategic reframe.

The strategy we’ve defaulted into might not be the strategy that would take us where we seek to go. To find a better strategy, we need to be prepared to walk away from the one we’ve defaulted into. ~ Seth Godin, This Is Strategy

Low battery mode.

When the body and mind are tired, we can't expect ourselves to do emotional heavy-lifting and make hard decisions. What we need instead is to be kind to ourselves and give ourselves the space to recover and recharge. This also requires us to do it with intent. Given

Choose your story.

Excerpt From The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Ben Zander: It's all invented. A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying, SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES

Becoming a professional project manager.

Whether you are creative, artist, freelancer or entrepreneur, your work requires you to manage projects. Projects are not jobs. They don't work if you just keep showing up and doing the tasks and chores that are on your plate. Projects require you to define who's it

Better together.

Emotional labour is challenging. It's challenging because it brings about self-doubt, imposter syndrome and perfectionism. Resistance does not like emotional labour. It knows quite well that this is how change happens with intent. What helps is to create the conditions where we feel safe enough to focus and

Good decision. Bad outcome.

Can you think of a good decision you made that led to a bad outcome? What made the decision a good decision? What makes a decision a good decision? It can't be that a good decision is one that leads to a good outcome. You can never be

Fear by another name.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the

Is the status quo good enough?

If the answer is no, then what needs to change? Can we be specific?  And how can we create the conditions for it to change?  Are we willing to be on the hook?  Are we willing to risk failing?  Because as Seth says, if there's no chance for

The irony of letting go.

Letting go of things that make us anxious requires emotional labour. That anxiety is most likely caused by things we have little agency over. When we choose to let go, it allows us to focus on the things where we have agency. Ironically, this leads us to have better chances

Opening doors.

Find a door, open it, go through it. Find the next door. Repeat.

Teaching magic.

Some teachers teach procedures. Do A, then B, then C. If you follow, you will learn. Some teachers teach logic. This is why we are doing A. This is why B follows. and so on. And, some teach magic. If you are with me, we are learning together. Feel free

The low after the high…

It’s going to come, without a doubt. But that doesn’t mean we stop going for the high. It means that we need to prepare how to handle the low.

The dance of focus and rest.

If there is no break, there is no focus either. If there is no focus, there is no break either.

Proximity and strategy.

Strategy is about the future we are intentionally working to build, the person we are seeking to become, the change we seek to make. It’s about investing in the present to make the future better. However, the present may not fully align itself to help us make the change.

Creating something (perfect) out of nothing.

There's no path from nothing to perfect. It's a trap. It can keep us from getting started and, for sure, from shipping our work. The path is from "bad" to "good enough". That's the work of a professional. They create

Work from office (not from home).

Even if you are working remotely, it helps to have a separate physical space to work from. The energy, the environment, the people, all contribute to how effective and focussed we are when we are working. And it also allows us to come back and be in a relaxed non-work

Without a strategy…

...every action, every game, every day seems like a make or break. For someone who goes to the gym regularly, no one gym session is a make or break, they know that over the long run, their health is going to get better. For someone who is consistent with their

Shifting the paradigm.

Paradigm change is different from incremental change. The process of changing the paradigm would require its own investment of time, money, energy and attention. And it may not yield any tangible advantage until the process is done. It’s always easier to continue with the way we usually do things.

Stay with the discomfort.

If you are new to strength training, it can be quite uncomfortable for you to stay in the gym. Not just physically, but emotionally. The imposter syndome, the self-doubt, the body image, everything will revolt and want you to leave. But, if you can stay with the discomfort, if you

When no one is looking.

Michael Phelps did his laps with intention, as he trained over the years, even when no one was looking. Tom Hanks worked on his acting skills and practiced for auditions, for years, even when no one was looking. It's a long journey before people start looking and care

The rough notebook.

The rough notebook allows ideas to flow, to present themselves without judgement, with lightnees. It gives us the ability to share stupid, incomplete, incoherent ideas without the fear of them not being good enough. The rough notebook is priceless.

Thinking beyond this instant.

Assets are built over time. Assets deliver value over time. If we are unable to see time, we will not be able to invest in and leverage assets.

A professional, 24x7

No one can be a professional 24x7. Taylor swift is a professional when she’s on stage or in the recording studio. But she can’t be a professional all the time. It takes a lot of emotional labour to show up as a professional with consistency despite how we