The wind behind your back. There are people in our lives who make us feel the wind behind our back. They make things effortless. They root for us even if no one else is. More often than not, we tend to focus more on people who stop us in our tracks than the ones who
Toddler mode. A toddler wants what the toddler wants and it wants it now. It also doesn't care about how it gets it. Any means is okay including throwing a tantrum. We might sometimes get what we want when we act like a toddler, but that will alienate the people
In the face of fear. Fear shows up, on schedule, almost everytime we engage with possibility. That's a physiological trait. Hoping that it doesn't happen is wishful thinking and doesn't help us move forward. What matters is how we act when fear shows up. Do we outrightly reject it
Getting through turbulence. If we are on a flight and face turbulence, all we can do is to remain calm and let the turbulence pass through. Even if we are the pilot. The idea of jumping out of the plane because of turbulence sounds a bit far fetched. And, of course, you can&
Waiting for permission. If you want to be a graphic designer at a startup, why don't you start designing graphics for them already? If you want to lead the fund raising for an non-profit, why aren't you doing that already? If you want to build a connection with others,
Stop, Stop, Stop, Stop! Excerpt From Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert: “Around the age of fifteen, I somehow figured out that my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear
Creating the conditions for better decision making. If you are hustled, anxious or rushed, it's unlikely you'd make a good decision. What's likely is that the discomfort will force you to make choices you wouldn't have chosen had the circumstances be different. Better decision making requires us to make
Holding onto hope. It's easy to lose hope, to look around and see nothing but despair and reasons why you should give up and accept that you are no good. Add to that the cultural narrative like "It's the hope that kills you" or "Hope is
Go or no go? How will a no-go decision make things better for later? Is it coming from fear or strategy? How will a go decision make things better for later? Is it coming from fear or strategy? We usually delay "go decisions" because they create tension both for ourselves and for
What can go wrong? This sounds like a negative question. It definitely sounds like a question we are likely to avoid. But if we ask this question much before things actually go wrong, we can plan for them. And make it less likely for them to derail our work. As Seth Godin says, resilience
The urge to tinker. When you build an elegant strategy, when you have a system that works, don't interrupt it. Don't get tempted by the short term exceptions. They seem harmless but they are not. They mess with the system. Many times, in order to achieve our goals, we need
A skill worth building. How to complete projects that matter to us: Get It Done: Complete Projects that Matter with Seth Godin Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.comLearn strategies to effectively tackle, finish, and ship projects that matter to you.LinkedIn Learning
The gift of letting go. When we let go of things, we allow ourselves to travel lighter. We can let go of wants and desires (for ourselves or for other people), we can let go of stories we are carrying that are not serving us anymore, we can let go of things we really really
Communicate, always. Just like over-hydration is a rarity, similarly over-communication is rare. Especially when the style of communication is concise and clear. Effective written communication makes it easier for the recipient to read (or skip) and to reply if a reply is needed. It allows us to share the relevant information with
The beauty of elegance. Elegance is simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness. It’s not only a solution that gets a result. It’s arguably a better solution—the least complex and clearest way forward. An elegant strategy offers leverage in service of the change we seek. While it might seem effortless in execution, creating the
Proxy rewards. Proxy rewards are like pain killers. They take away the symptoms but don't do much for the underlying cause. Social media can become a proxy for connection, junk food can become a proxy for nutrition, drinking can become a proxy for fun and so on. The biggest danger
% chaos. The only way to keep things 100% organized is to not do anything. You don't ruffle any feathers, you don't make any ruckus, no one puts you on the hook for anything. On the other hand, complete chaos doesn't make things better, it mostly
Letting opportunities go. “Don’t let an opportunity go” might work for those who don’t know how to create the opportunities they seek. A strategic focus requires us to say no to everything that doesn’t align with where we seek to go. And be patient to figure out which path is
Making better excuses. It doesn't matter how good your excuses are. ~ Seth Godin, Get It Done - Complete Projects that matter Get It Done: Complete Projects that Matter with Seth Godin Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.comLearn strategies to effectively tackle, finish, and ship projects that matter to you.LinkedIn
Stopping the car. Driving fast might not be a good strategy if we don't know where we are going. Stopping the car and calibrating the navigation is, of course, better, especially when a map of the terrain is available. But with the work that matters, we rarely have a map. At
The skill of showing up. Showing up is more than half the work done, maybe even most of the work. That's what most people fail to do. They wait for permission to show up. They listen to the voice inside their head that persuades them to wait, that tells them that later is
3 kinds of tasks. 1. Go or No-Go Decisions: Are we shipping this or not? Can we make a non-emotional decision? If we are shipping it, when do we ship? 2. Shifting work from ambiguous to specific: Now that we have decided that we are going to ship it, what do the specific tasks
The dance of scarcity and abundance. Abundance and possibility go hand in hand. A universe of possibility is abundant, generative and infinite. To engage with abundance, though, we need to engage with scarcity also. Scarcity creates tension. Human behaviour craves that which is scarce. This dance of scarcity and abundance is what leads to creativity. Scarcity
The trap of recurring decisions. Recurring decisions don't make up for an elegant strategy. Every decision requires emotional labour and spending it on decisions that do not matter leads to decision fatigue and take us away from the work that matters. If you see yourself asking the same question again and again, maybe
Doing your part. When we engage with possibility, we can only do our part. We can put ourselves in places where possibility can happen. The other part is not in our hands. The part where we need to trust that the other side will show up. The one thing we can trust is
