The generosity of the cheerleader. They push the creative forward. They create a defence against the voice of doubt. They make the creative believe and take the leap. Cheerleaders make us feel like a team playing on its home ground. The wind is behind our back when we are surrounded by them. When in doubt,
What does v1 look like? The original iPhone did not have "copy and paste" functionality. It didn't matter that it might be only have been a few hours work for a software person to put the functionality in. It didn't matter because when we think of a phone, this
Insufficiency or optimism? Which story do we choose to tell ourselves? What are we creating evidence towards? Insufficiency is a bottomless container which will always find evidence proving us to be insufficient. Optimism, on the contrary, is a story of growth, of change, or making things better. Fear can make us choose insufficiency
The data doesn’t lie. There’s a saying in the health world, “Blood doesn’t lie”. You may believe what you want to believe about your health, but a blood test can tell exactly how it is. How can we create an equivalent of this for our work? What metrics would tell us the
Accepting all of you. Desire. fear. love. ambition. Taking all the parts with you. With love, with compassion. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. But it requires all the parts to be whole.
"I will do this later." This is a trap. The trap lies in the missing question, "Okay! When is later?" Without the answer to "When is later?", we are off the hook. There is no accountability. Later encompasses the remaining entirety of our lifetime. And hence, every time the thing pops
What direction are we moving towards? What direction are we moving towards? What direction do we want to move towards? What would it take for us to change the direction? What are we waiting for? If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. ~ Lao Tzu
The art of slowing down. Turning the volume knob anti-clockwise. Reducing the speed to 3/4x, 1/2x, 1/4x. Coming to the present moment and staying there. There's an art to slowing down. And it's worth learning.
Self-love and compassion. It's a skill. We can learn to be compassionate to ourselves through practice. We can learn to love ourselves through practice. Every time we choose to be compassionate with ourselves instead of being unreasonably critical, we do the equivalent of one compassion push-up. Over time, we build the
Downward spiral or possibility? We can choose. Image from The Art of Possibility by Ben Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander
Taking rest. How do you know you have rested enough? How can you rest even more? “I regret resting too much”, said no one ever.
Bad blogs. Bad blogs are the way to a good blog. No blogs are not. When in doubt, write a bad blog over no blog.
Idea machine The brain is an idea machine. If we sit in front of a blank screen with our hands on the keyboard, it will churn out ideas, one after the other. Not all ideas will be great, but not all will be bad either. One thing's for sure, though,
One thing at a time. One day at a time. That's how we turn professional. That's how we beat resistance. It's simple. But it's not easy. “The magic of the creative process is that there is no magic” ~ Seth Godin, The Practice
The magic of saying no. Saying no is hard. Instead of saying no, we try to adjust to doing things that we don't want to do, attend meetings that we don't want to attend and commit to projects that don't align with our goals. But, once we learn to
System or exceptions. Exceptions are the one-time changes that are needed in case of emergencies. Once they are taken care of, they give us an opportunity to make changes at the system level. But, if all we do is to work on handling the exception without making the requisite changes in the system,
Your work matters. It matters to the people who you might not be able to see yet. It would matter to them in more ways than you can think of. No one is going to give you permission to do the work. You can, though, choose to give yourself permission. You can choose
Moving from doubt towards trust. Small, incremental actions create evidence. That evidence helps us take slightly larger actions. And over time, it becomes our identity. Surrounding yourselves with people who cheer you on your small wins makes the journey easier. Someone who does 100 push-ups today started by doing a single one someday.
The way things are. Excerpt From The Art of Possibility by Ben Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander: This practice is to be present to the way things are, including our feelings about the way things are. This practice can help us clarify the next step that will take us in the direction we say
One thing. The hard work is to figure out the one thing that you need to get done next. And, once you figure that out, you can make space for getting that thing done. That space could be a single focus session of 90 minutes, could be multiple sessions of 90 minutes
Making space for... What would you like to make space for in your life? Health, relationship, companionship, humour, love, money, growth? What does this space look like? What can you start doing daily or weekly or monthly to make this space? Once we are intentional about what we want, we will be intentional
Working tired. Would you bet on the best athlete to win the race if they started tired? Then, why do you think you can do your best work when your body and mind are tired? Taking care of your body and mind is a trait of the professional. Unlike amateurs, they don&
Manufacturing possibility... Every day, we get a chance to manufacture possibility. We can do that by smiling at someone and asking how they are doing, we can do that by making someone feel seen and heard, we can do that by moving beyond the voice of our calculating self. Good things happen
The last person to know. Most of your clients may not see you as an amateur. Many of your colleagues may not too. Maybe even some of your friends too. But, for you to not see yourself as an amateur is a big leap. Somehow, you might be the last person to know that you
I do what I say I'll do. And, by when I say I'll do it. A skill that's worth practising. And a reputation that's worth building. HT to Eli Ricker for the "Tracking What I Do Versus What I Say I'll Do" project.
